Grimoires: A History of Magic Books

«grimoires are books of conjurations and charms, providing instructions on how to make magical objects such as protective amulets and talismans» — .

«It more likely derives from the French word ‘grammaire’, which originally referred to a work written in Latin» — frente a la propuesta del italiano «rimario».

La tesis que organiza el libro, y que Davies atribuye a otro historiador: «A book of magic is also a magical book».

«The earliest versions of the text were written in Greek in the Wfteenth century» — [«Wfteenth»: el OCR da W por la ligadura fi].

«We do not know his identity though it was falsely attributed by some to a well-known Spanish Arab mathematician» — Davies NO nombra al matemático.

«A Hebrew manuscript entitled the Book of the Key of Solomon (Sepher Maphteah Shelomoh), which dates to no earlier than the late seventeenth or eighteenth century and was probably translated from Italian» — .

«The Wrst edition of The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, in Latin, was produced in Marburg in 1559» — .

«a former pupil of Agrippa named Johan Weyer would later protest that the Fourth Book had nothing to do with his late master» — [«Johan», así en el impreso].

La censura antigua, con sus dos hitos: «the senate requested the Roman magistrates to round up and burn books of soothsaying» en 186 a.C., y siglo y medio después «2,000 books of divination were said to have burned on the orders of Emperor Augustus» — el verbo del segundo es de decir, no de constancia.

«the Council of Toledo issued an edict stating ‘it is not permitted for altar ministers or for clerics to become magicians or sorcerers» — .

«a clear intellectual division developed during the medieval period between natural magic and demonic magic or necromancy» — .

La vía toledana: «It had been captured from the Moors in 1085 by Alfonso VI of Castile», que se declaró «the king of the two religions».

«a collection of over thirty magic texts were donated to St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury» — por al menos cinco monjes distintos.

«Printing was described as a ‘black art’ and books as ‘silent heretics» — , y en la misma plana: «The Italian Inquisition was instituted in 1542» para frenar la amenaza protestante.

«it was translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) and published in 1471» — el Corpus lo trajo a Florencia un monje bizantino en 1460; del De occulta philosophia dice que «he only had it published in Antwerp in 1533».

«In 1682 Louis XIV ordered the promulgation of a new law to suppress all those ‘who follow the vain professions of fortune-tellers, magicians, or sor» — cerers.

El sello ficticio: «A favourite ruse was to hide behind the Wctional publishing company of Beringos Fratres of Lyon», con domicilio «at the sign of Agrippa».

«The Clavicule of Solomon was evidently one of the few legitimate grimoires in his estimation, for in 1860 he made an annotated manuscript copy of one version» — dicho de Lévi.

Mathers declara su criterio de selección: «Mathers was well aware of this, mentioning that he had seen grimoires ascribed to Solomon which were ‘full of evil magic, and I cannot caution the practical student too strongly against them».

«he published under his own name a British Library manuscript, the ‘Lemegeton; Clavicula Salomonis or the Little Key of Solomon’, which consisted of a list of spirits and their characters, that Mathers had transcribed» — Davies lo llama acto de venganza.

«Mathers wrote a letter to Florence Farr stating that Westcott had forged both the cipher manuscript and the correspondence with the mysterious Anna Sprengel» — .

«Histories of the lives of Noah’s sons outside the Old Testament were mutable and sometimes conXicting.» — declaración de límite sobre las fuentes: las historias de los hijos de Noé fuera del Antiguo Testamento eran mutables y a veces contradictorias entre sí

«In some accounts Ham wrote down the secrets of his demonic magic on metal plates and stone tablets before the Flood, buried them, and then returned to them once the waters had subsided.» — una versión: Cam grabó los secretos en placas de metal y tablillas de piedra antes del Diluvio, y volvió por ellas al bajar las aguas

«Others, such as the Wrst Bishop of Norwich (d. 1119), thought his magic book was secreted in the Ark: ‘the ark was of small compass; but yet even there Ham preserved the arts of magic and idolatry.’» — y la versión rival, adjudicada al primer obispo de Norwich, con su cita dentro del ancla

«In some medieval texts Zoroaster is the son of Ham and in others he is Ham.» — la inestabilidad de la figura: en unos textos medievales Zoroastro es hijo de Cam y en otros es Cam mismo

«According to the twelfth-century scholar Michael Scot, in his history of astrology and astronomy, Zoroaster was the inventor of magic, but he was descended from Shem, and it was Ham who invented the art of divination with the help of demons.» — la versión de Michael Scot, que lo hace inventor de la magia pero descendiente de Sem

«Although Persia was seen as the source of magic, the people of the ancient civilization of Chaldea, part of Babylonia, were also renowned for their astrological and magical abilities.» — Persia como fuente de la magia, y Caldea renombrada por lo astrológico

«In Uruk, one of the world’s earliest cities, and now part of Iraq, excavations of houses dating from the Wfth and fourth centuries bce turned up cuneiform clay tablets containing a series of magic rituals and incantations.» — el dato arqueológico: tablillas cuneiformes con encantamientos en Uruk, entre los siglos quinto y cuarto antes de nuestra era

«By the birth of Christ, though, it was the later civilization of Egypt that was seen by Greeks, Romans, Christians, Jews, and later Muslims, as the centre of magic and the home of the most adept magician priests.» — el desplazamiento del centro: hacia el nacimiento de Cristo es Egipto lo que griegos, romanos, cristianos, judíos y después musulmanes tienen por hogar de la magia

«According to the Jewish Talmud, nine-tenths of the world’s sorcery resided in Egypt.» — la proporción que el Talmud le adjudica a Egipto, citada como creencia y no como dato

«According to the New Testament (Acts 7:22) ‘Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.’» — la fórmula de Hechos 7:22 sobre la sabiduría egipcia de Moisés, dentro del ancla

«The Greek pagan Celsus, writing in the second century ce, asserted that the Jews were much addicted to the sorcery taught them by Moses.» — la acusación de Celso en el siglo segundo, adjudicada a él por su nombre

«It was, however, fundamental to the identity of Jewish religion, and important to Christianity, that a clear distinction was made between the ‘portents and miracles’ of Moses and the ‘sorcery’ of Egyptian wizards.» — el deslinde que Davies señala como fundamental para la identidad judía: portentos y milagros de un lado, magia egipcia del otro

«Yet from the late medieval period onwards, Christian occult philosophers, mystics, and magicians began to redeWne Moses as an Egyptian rather than a Jew, presenting him as a repository of Egyptian wisdom and magic.» — y la reescritura tardía: desde el final de la Edad Media los filósofos ocultos cristianos redefinen a Moisés como egipcio antes que judío

«Yet, intriguingly, by the late eighteenth century a manuscript claiming to be the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses was circulating in Germany.» — la aparición tardía del manuscrito de los Libros Sexto y Séptimo, ya en la Alemania del XVIII

«Hermes Trismegistus was the other central Wgure in historic conceptions of ancient Egyptian magic, and the next great reputed author of occult books in this survey of the dubious lineage of magic.» — Hermes Trismegisto como el otro autor central de la lista dudosa que el capítulo repasa

«In his most mythical guise he was a conXation of Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian god of Wisdom, and the Greek god Hermes (equated with the Roman Mercury).» — la conflación que le da origen: Thot con cabeza de ibis y el Hermes griego

«In an Islamic tradition dating to at least the ninth century there are three people identiWed as Hermes.» — la tradición islámica del siglo noveno que distingue tres personas llamadas Hermes

«Manetho reckoned there were an impressive 36,525 books of Hermes.» — la cifra que Manetón le adjudica a Hermes

«Another estimate from the same era mentioned the more modest number of 20,000 works, others mere tens and hundreds rather than thousands.» — y las estimaciones rivales, mucho menores, que Davies pone al lado sin arbitrar

«The account of him in the Old Testament refers to his wisdom as being ‘greater than all the wisdom of Egypt’.» — la fórmula del Antiguo Testamento sobre la sabiduría de Salomón

«There is no biblical intimation of Solomon as being a great magician, but his reputation for astrology and knowledge of the spirit world seems to have circulated in the Near East and Egypt by the second century bce.» — búsqueda negativa dentro de la Biblia: no hay indicio bíblico de Salomón como gran mago, y su fama de astrólogo circula por otra vía

«It is the Wrst-century Jewish historian Josephus who presents us with the Wrst clear representation of Solomon the magician, telling how Solomon had written 3,000 books including ones containing incantations and exorcisms to heal demon-induced sickness.» — la primera representación clara del Salomón mago, adjudicada a Josefo en el siglo primero

«The Wrst actual magic book attributed to him, the Testament of Solomon, was written in Greek sometime during the Wrst Wve centuries ce and probably originated in Babylonia or Egypt.» — el Testamento de Salomón, con su datación y su origen probable

«There is no evidence, as some scholars have suggested, that the Greek version borrowed from an earlier Jewish Solomonic book of magic.» — búsqueda negativa contra una hipótesis erudita: no hay evidencia de que la versión griega tomara de un libro salomónico judío anterior

«There is no doubt the Testament was used as a grimoire rather than merely read as a cautionary religious or mystical text.» — lo que Davies da por seguro: el Testamento se usó como grimorio, no solo se leyó como advertencia

«The renowned thirteenth-century scientist and friar Albertus Magnus of Cologne noted that Wve necromantic books ascribed to Solomon were circulating at the time.» — Alberto Magno consigna cinco libros nigrománticos atribuidos a Salomón circulando en su tiempo

«Despite being condemned by some medieval commentators the Ars Notoria or Notary Arts was another similarly benign Solomonic work rather than a demonic grimoire.» — la Ars Notoria deslindada como obra benigna pese a las condenas medievales

«Surviving early copies, of which over Wfty exist for the period 1300–1600, contain prayers with words purporting to be Chaldean, along with Greek and Hebrew, and various occult signs and geometric Wgures revealed to Solomon by an angel as he prayed one night.» — el censo de copias tempranas: más de cincuenta entre 1300 y 1600

«It was the Wrst Solomonic text to be put into print, with a Latin edition appearing around 1600, though it did not contain the notae or occult signs and Wgures found in the earlier manuscripts.» — el primer texto salomónico impreso, y lo que la edición latina dejó fuera

«The most enduring, inXuential, and notorious Solomonic book, the Clavicula Salomonis or the Clavicule or Key of Solomon, was a true grimoire.» — la Clavícula como el libro salomónico más duradero, y el único que Davies llama grimorio verdadero

«Although some manuscripts again claimed that they were translations from Hebrew there is no substantive evidence for a Hebrew version before the seventeenth century.» — búsqueda negativa sobre la lengua original: no hay evidencia sustantiva de una versión hebrea anterior al XVII

«There is no one deWnitive version of the Clavicule but, along with conjurations to command and control the ‘Angels of Darkness’, manuscripts usually contained rituals and symbols for personal rather than spiritual well being, such as to provoke love, punish enemies, become invisible, and deal with thieves.» — y la advertencia sobre el objeto mismo: no existe una versión definitiva de la Clavícula

«The New Testament, while rich in miracles, exorcisms, and magic, did not provide any notable future grimoire authors.» — búsqueda negativa sobre el Nuevo Testamento: pese a sus milagros y exorcismos, no dio autores de grimorios

«Yet the meaning of the original Greek words usually referred to diviners and poisoners rather than people who performed maleWcium or harmful acts of magic to kill, injure, or ruin their neighbours and their goods,» — filología con consecuencias judiciales: el griego original nombraba adivinos y envenenadores antes que autores de maleficio

«Likewise it has been suggested that poor translation generated an inaccurate portrayal of Simon as a base magician.» — y la misma causa aplicada a Simón: la mala traducción habría producido su retrato de mago vulgar

«By the fourth and Wfth centuries he was no longer just a magician and Gnostic but was being denounced as the father of all heresies.» — la escalada de la figura: hacia los siglos cuarto y quinto Simón ya es padre de todas las herejías

«The pagan author Celsus argued that Jesus had visited Egypt to learn magic.» — la acusación de Celso sobre el aprendizaje egipcio de Jesús, adjudicada a él

«There is evidence, nevertheless, that care was taken about how and which of Jesus’ miracles were included in the New Testament, particularly in Matthew, so as not to present them as magical in comparison with the healing magic practised at the time.» — el cuidado editorial que Davies señala en la selección de milagros, sobre todo en Mateo

«There are no stories of how secret books were buried, hidden, or handed down for future generations.» — búsqueda negativa que explica una ausencia: no hay relatos de libros secretos enterrados ni transmitidos

«This is one reason why grimoire traditions did not accrue around them over the centuries.» — y la consecuencia que Davies saca de esa ausencia

«Grimoire authorship was generally associated with Wgures known for their wisdom, knowledge, or Christian piety, even if the latter was achieved through the renunciation of prior sinful magical practices.» — el patrón de la autoría de grimorios: figuras de sabiduría o de piedad, aun cuando la piedad viniera de renunciar al pecado

«It is obviously a matter of religious belief whether Hermes, Ham, Zoroaster, Solomon, or Moses existed or performed miracles let alone received and wrote books.» — abstención expresa, y remite la cuestión a la creencia religiosa antes que a la evidencia

«What is certain is that by the fourth century bce books of spells and charms written on papyrus were being produced.» — y lo que en cambio da por cierto: hacia el siglo cuarto antes de nuestra era ya se producían libros de conjuros en papiro

«The one signiWcant disadvantage of papyrus was that it was Xammable.» — la desventaja material del papiro, que explica buena parte de las pérdidas

«Magic was explicitly associated with paganism, and in the struggle for religious and political dominance the Church saw magic books as sources of religious corruption that tarnished Christians and hampered the conversion of pagans.» — el motivo que Davies adjudica a la Iglesia: la magia asociada al paganismo en una lucha por el dominio religioso y político

«The Church was by no means a trendsetter in burning books in the name of religion.» — y el deslinde histórico, que le quita a la Iglesia la primacía en la quema de libros

«In 181 bce a buried chest of books purporting to be the work of Pythagoras were turned to ashes on the orders of the senate.» — el cofre de libros atribuidos a Pitágoras, quemado por orden del senado en 181 antes de nuestra era

«Christians were also the target of imperial suppression, with the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s edict of 303 ce ordering the destruction of all copies of the Scriptures.» — el edicto de Diocleciano de 303, con los cristianos como blanco

«As related in Acts 19, many of the Jews and Greeks of Ephesus, a city now in Turkey, famous for its Temple of the goddess Artemis, ‘used curious arts [and] brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it Wfty thousand pieces of silver.’» — el caso de Éfeso según Hechos 19, con la fórmula del texto dentro del ancla

«Some Bible scholars have suggested that those who handed over their magic books were newly converted Christians destroying the last vestige of their old religion, though the dominant interpretation is that it was Jews and pagans who handed them over as an act of conversion to the new faith.» — las dos lecturas que los estudiosos bíblicos le dan al episodio, sin que Davies arbitre

«Either way the sheer number of books involved, if the details are to be believed, suggest that grimoires were not only in the possession of the professional magicians and healers but were kept in many homes.» — la inferencia que sí se permite: el número de libros sugiere que los grimorios no eran solo de magos profesionales

«It was clear to the Church authorities, though, that magic was not just a pagan problem, even if magic was deemed pagan.» — el deslinde que las autoridades eclesiásticas tenían claro: la magia no era solo problema pagano, aunque se la tuviera por pagana

«One of the investigators, Zacariah of Mytilene, later described how: ‘In the books were certain drawings of perverse daimones, barbaric names, and harmful, presumptuous commands replete with arrogance and quite Wt for perverse daimones.» — el testimonio de Zacarías de Mitilene sobre lo que hallaron en los libros, citado por su nombre

«Foulon confessed and blamed the student ethos in the city for his descent into magic, naming several other students of his acquaintance who practised the art.» — la confesión de Foulon, que culpa al ambiente estudiantil de la ciudad y delata a otros

«These tactics seemed to be partially successful for grimoires were found in only two homes including George’s.» — y el resultado medido de aquellas tácticas: grimorios en solo dos casas

«It was in this period, 386 to be precise, that a Spanish bishop, Priscillian of Avila, was condemned to death for allegedly practising sorcery and consorting with depraved women in nocturnal revels.» — el caso de Prisciliano de Ávila en 386, con el verbo de acusación dentro del ancla

«He claimed that the books had belonged to his late mother and he knew nothing of their contents.» — la defensa del acusado: los libros eran de su madre difunta y él no conocía su contenido

«This rather lame excuse convinced Syagrius, who returned the book in his possession, and Severus subsequently bought back the other two volumes from Sagittius.» — y el desenlace, que Davies califica de excusa floja pero eficaz

«Over the next few centuries Church authorities from across the Christian world issued repeated warnings. In 694, for instance, the Council of Toledo issued an edict stating ‘it is not permitted for altar ministers or for clerics to become magicians or sorcerers, or to make charms, which are great bindings on souls.» — el edicto del Concilio de Toledo de 694

«By the end of the millennium, with Christianity having been the sole religion across much of Europe for several centuries, paganism and its ambivalent demons of the natural world had long ceased to be relevant.» — el cambio de estatuto de los demonios paganos al cabo del milenio

«While magic had only negative connotations for some, a clear intellectual division developed during the medieval period between natural magic and demonic magic or necromancy.» — la división intelectual que se forma en la Edad Media entre magia natural y magia demoníaca o nigromancia

«Natural magic rested on the premise that interconnecting hidden or occult natural forces existed in God’s universe that could be tapped by humans.» — la premisa en que descansa la magia natural: fuerzas ocultas puestas por Dios en su universo y aprovechables por el hombre

«God had given them a signature identifying the sympathy they had with other living things.» — la doctrina de la signatura, que hace legible esa simpatía

«If magic was not natural then it was either fraudulent pretence, illusion, or enacted through the power of demons.» — y el reverso de la definición: lo que no es natural es fraude, ilusión o poder de demonios

«Jewish religious laws regarding clean and unclean animals also dictated that parchment for ritual purposes was not to be made from the likes of camel, pig, and hare.» — las leyes judías de pureza aplicadas al pergamino ritual

«The word ‘nigromancy’ also appears in medieval documents. This was a variant spelling of necromancy, but itcame tohaveitsown meaning as ‘blackmagic’.» — filología del término nigromancia, variante de necromancia que acabó significando magia negra

«Medieval grimoires sometimes speciWed that virgin or unborn parchment should be used for making copies and writing out amulets.» — el pergamino virgen o nonato que los grimorios medievales llegaban a exigir

«The reason for their use was to ensure the purity of the grimoire or charm; in eVect it was an act of sympathetic magic that cleansed the written word from the impurity of thought or action of the magician.» — y su razón declarada: un acto de magia simpática para limpiar la palabra escrita

«the magician should personally induce the abortion or cut out the uterus from dead animals to ensure that no external agencies contaminated the process.» — hasta dónde llegaba la exigencia de pureza según algunos textos

«The use of ink consecrated by a priest further enhanced the act of writing magic.» — la tinta consagrada por un sacerdote como refuerzo del acto de escribir

«Medieval grimoires reXect this, but new traditions also developed as scholars and theologians reconceptualized and reconstructed, sometimes falsely, the cultures, philosophies, and beliefs of the ancient world.» — y la advertencia de método: los eruditos reconstruyeron esas culturas a veces en falso

«He was said to have built an enchanted palace in Rome, carried oV the daughter of a Babylonian Sultan, and founded a school of magic in Naples.» — la leyenda de Virgilio mago, con su palacio encantado y su escuela de magia en Nápoles

«But no classical writer accrued more spurious texts than the philosopher Aristotle (384–322 bce).» — el reclamo comparativo: ningún autor clásico acumuló más textos espurios que Aristóteles

«Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, for instance, a monumental compilation of information regarding the natural world, was particularly well mined by compilers of grimoires and works on natural magic.» — la Historia Natural de Plinio como cantera de los compiladores de grimorios

«This was based on the notion that the powers emanating from the planets and stars could be channelled into talismans and images through the agency of named spirits and angels at astrologically propitious moments.» — la noción que sostiene la magia astral: los poderes de planetas y estrellas canalizados en talismanes por medio de espíritus nombrados

«The idea that divine and astral spirit forces could be harnessed by magical means dates right back to the beginnings of recorded magic.» — y su antigüedad, que Davies remonta al comienzo mismo de la magia registrada

«So the Moorish tradition brought to Spain was a fusion of Near Eastern cultural contacts, which for the Wrst time Wltered into the Western formulation of natural magic.» — la fusión que la tradición mora trae a España, y que por primera vez se filtra en la magia natural occidental

«The centre of this profound exchange of literary religious, scientiWc, and magical knowledge was the city of Toledo in central Spain.» — Toledo como centro de ese intercambio

«It had been captured from the Moors in 1085 by Alfonso VI of Castile, who declared himself ‘the king of the two religions’.» — la toma de la ciudad en 1085 y la fórmula con que Alfonso VI se declaró rey de las dos religiones

«While many of the Muslim elite left, Arabic scholarship continued amongst Moors who had converted to Christianity and amongst Christians who had been culturally ‘Arabized’ after several centuries of Moorish rule.» — la continuidad del saber árabe entre moros conversos y cristianos arabizados

«The impetus to translate works into Latin came from the interests of the one intellectual community in the city that contained few Arabic readers, the French-dominated clergy running the cathedral and the numerous wandering scholars who travelled to stay with them.» — el motor de las traducciones al latín, y viene de quienes NO leían árabe

«Amongst them was the Norfolk clergyman Daniel of Morley. Sometime in the late twelfth century he set out for the Continent ‘for the purposes of study’.» — Daniel de Morley, el clérigo de Norfolk que fue a estudiar al continente

«‘I hastened with all speed,’ he wrote, ‘that I might attend the lectures of the wisest philosophers of the world.’» — su motivo, en primera persona dentro del ancla

«It was a compilation of instructions on astral magic describing how to make astrological talismans by drawing into them the power of the presiding spirits of the planets and stars.» — el contenido del libro: talismanes astrológicos que atraen el poder de los espíritus planetarios

«Animal sacriWces were involved such as a white dove to propitiate Venus and a black billy goat to honour Saturn.» — los sacrificios que el rito pedía, con sus correspondencias planetarias

«While historians now recognize medieval Toledo as an extraordinarily enlightened centre of multicultural scholarship, for centuries afterwards it had a disrep-» — el contraste de reputaciones: los historiadores reconocen hoy a Toledo como centro ilustrado y multicultural, y durante siglos tuvo la fama contraria

«according to Lozano’s take on history, in 1543 the archbishop of Toledo organized an excavation and found an altar decorated with bronze statues.» — la excavación de 1543 según la versión de Lozano, consignada como su lectura de la historia

«The archbishop ordered that the entrance be sealed once more to prevent its evil manifestations from spreading.» — y la orden del arzobispo de volver a sellar la entrada

«It is clear that Salamanca, by now considered the major centre of learning, was deliberately or mistakenly associated with the old Toledo Hercules legend.» — lo que a Davies le resulta claro: Salamanca quedó asociada a la vieja leyenda toledana, por deliberación o por error

«I have read that, as a result of the Moorish occupation of Spain, the magical arts were virtually the only subjects being taught in Toledo, Seville and Salamanca.» — el reclamo de Del Río, en primera persona y con verbo de lectura, no de constancia

«As Del Rio’s account indicates, the great age of Arabic-inspired magic in Spain was thought to have been eVectively suppressed by King Ferdinand and his wife, Isabella, the monarchs who forged a united Spain during the late Wfteenth and early sixteenth centuries.» — la supresión que se le atribuye a Fernando e Isabel

«Ferdinand and Isabella, who sanctioned the setting up of the Wrst permanent Inquisition, endorsed the forced conversion of Muslims and ordered the expulsion of the Jews, putting an end to a rich history of religious, cultural, and scientiWc collaboration.» — y lo que sí sancionaron: la primera Inquisición permanente, la conversión forzada de los musulmanes y la expulsión de los judíos

«The Kyranides became the most notorious work of magic in medieval Constantinople, as is evident from several trials heard by the city’s Eastern Orthodox Church Synod in 1370.» — los Kyranides como la obra mágica más notoria de Constantinopla, probada en juicios del Sínodo ortodoxo

«He was possibly a monk and doctor, and was evidently a major Wgure in the dissemination of grimoires in and around the city.» — la identificación tentativa de su difusor, con dos adverbios de reserva

«During the twelfth century some Spanish Jewish intellectuals became particularly interested in astral magic, for instance, incorporating it into their theologies and philosophies of medicine.» — los intelectuales judíos españoles del XII que incorporan la magia astral a su teología

«We know how prominent Jewish magic was in Egypt in late antiquity, and it was a considerable inXuence on the later Arabic tradition, but determining what was available in the medieval period is, for the moment, a matter of guesswork, as much research remains to be done.» — declaración de límite: determinar qué circulaba entonces es lo difícil, pese a saberse de la magia judía en Egipto

«The most notorious Jewish grimoire, the Sefer ha-Razim or Book of Mysteries, was pieced together from a series of fragments by a rabbinic scholar in the 1960s.» — el Sefer ha-Razim, reconstruido por un erudito rabínico en los años sesenta a partir de fragmentos

«‘Ram-bearer’ is a Greek term for Hermes, and other linguistic and textual evidence suggests the original work was probably composed in Palestine sometime in the Wfth or sixth century ce.» — la datación por evidencia lingüística, con el término griego para Hermes como indicio

«It is, according to one expert, ‘the Wrst attested Jewish grimoire’ in the sense that it is the Wrst example of a Hebrew book of black magic akin to the necromantic works of the Christian medieval world.» — la adjudicación a un experto sin nombrarlo: el primer grimorio judío atestiguado

«There is certainly no lack of evidence for medieval Jewish magic, though, and in recent years work has Wnally begun on exploring the amulets, spells, and conjurations found in the Cairo Genizah» — y el contrapeso: no falta evidencia de magia judía medieval, y el trabajo apenas empezó

«A genizah is a hiding place and the one housed in the Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, which was founded in 882, contained tens of thousands of pages of papyri and parchment on Jewish theology, philosophy, and much else besides, providing important insights regarding both Jewish and Egyptian cultures in the region.» — la Genizá de El Cairo y su volumen documental

«The Cairo Genizah had been known about in the West since the mid-eighteenth century, but its literary treasures only began to be explored late in the following century when they were dispersed to libraries across Europe and America.» — su cronología de descubrimiento y exploración

«The discovery of a Hebrew magic manuscript in the Cairo Genizah that was probably written in eleventh-century southern Italy is just one indication of how the exchange of esoteric ideas Xowed both ways across the Mediterranean at the time.» — el manuscrito hebreo probablemente escrito en la Italia meridional del XI, como indicio del intercambio

«The most inXuential example of this was the development of the Jewish mystical interpretation of the Torah known as Kabbalah, which emerged in twelfth-century Provence before developing further in the Spanish cities.» — la Cábala como interpretación mística de la Torá surgida en la Provenza del XII

«Put very simply, practical Kabbalah was based on the premise that Hebrew was the language spoken by God, and as such the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were connected to God through divine emanations.» — la premisa de la Cábala práctica: el hebreo como lengua hablada por Dios

«So too were the secret names of God transmitted orally to Moses and which provided a key to the written Torah.» — y los nombres secretos transmitidos oralmente a Moisés como llave del texto

«Of all the numerous Jewish holy names for God, Tetragrammaton became the most widely used and recognizable in the European magic tradition.» — el Tetragrámaton como el nombre divino más usado y reconocible en la tradición mágica europea

«It was, in fact, a Greek translation of the Hebrew name ‘YHWH’ (Yahweh).» — y su filología: traducción griega del hebreo YHWH

«As such the manuscript represents a rare counter-Xow of magical knowledge from north to south.» — el manuscrito como contraflujo raro de saber mágico, de norte a sur

«Well, Christian prayers and blessings were also integral to the magic contained in grimoires.» — el dato que desarma la oposición fácil: las oraciones y bendiciones cristianas eran parte integral de la magia de los grimorios

«The sign of the Cross, holy water, and consecrated paraphernalia were important defences against inadvertently conjuring up demons.» — la cruz, el agua bendita y los objetos consagrados como defensas contra conjurar demonios por descuido

«Although a blasphemous act, the Mass was used in some conjurations, and was notoriously inverted and perverted in the lurid confessions of tortured witches and in reality by some debauched necromancers in the early modern period.» — la misa usada en conjuraciones, y su inversión en las confesiones arrancadas bajo tortura

«I will begin, though, with a saint who probably never existed.» — la advertencia con que Davies abre el apartado, sobre un santo que probablemente nunca existió

«Saint Cyprian of Antioch is a legendary third-century Christian martyr who, through confusion with the very real Cyprian of Carthage (martyred in 258 ce), came to have an enduring reputation as a magician and grimoire author.» — y la confusión que lo produjo, con el Cipriano de Cartago histórico de por medio

«In the West, the prayers of Saint Cyprian were used in love magic, but while Trithemius apparently owned a demonological treatise bearing his name, it was only in the late eighteenth century that Cyprian grimoires began to circulate widely in parts of Europe.» — búsqueda negativa sobre el tratado que Tritemio decía poseer

«The Sworn Book of Honorius, which Wrst appeared in the Wrst half of the thirteenth century, has nothing to do with the Emperor Honorius.» — la adjudicación negativa del Libro Jurado: nada tiene que ver con el emperador Honorio

«According to the earliest Latin manuscripts it was written by one Honorius of Thebes, son of Euclid—presumably the fourth-century ce Greek mathematician of that name who lived in Alexandria, and whose work was Wrst translated into Latin in the twelfth century.» — lo que sí dicen los manuscritos latinos más antiguos sobre su autor

«Only the godly and faithful who had sworn an oath and been tested for the space of a year were to be allowed access to it.» — la condición de acceso que el propio libro impone: juramento y un año de prueba

«The reason for the endeavour was the magicians’ fear that the pope and his cardinals, envious and diabolically inspired, were planning a campaign to suppress them and burn their books.» — el motivo declarado de la empresa: el miedo de los magos a una campaña del papa y sus cardenales

«By following its lengthy instructions magicians would be able to have a vision of God, hell, and purgatory, and obtain countless treasures and knowledge of all science.» — lo que el libro promete a quien siga sus instrucciones

«One nineteenth-century historian of magic suggested that the attribution was a deliberate act of vengeance orchestrated by persecuted medieval magicians who desired to place responsibility for their diabolic crimes on the papacy.» — la hipótesis de un historiador decimonónico sobre la atribución como venganza, consignada como sugerencia suya

«Maybe the association was to do with Honorius III’s failed Crusade to capture Egypt or because of his protection of the Knights Templar, who, in the early fourteenth century, were accused of sorcery and worshipping a diabolic idol named Baphomet.» — y las conjeturas alternativas que Davies pone al lado, todas con adverbio de duda

«Then again, perhaps the enterprising scribe who Wrst penned the Grimoire du Pape Honorius in the second half of the seventeenth century was ignorant of the legend of the Theban magician, and the only Honorius he or she knew was of the papal kind.» — la explicación más simple, también conjetural: que el escriba ignorara a quién atribuía

«While Honorius’s reputation was apparently an invention of the seventeenth century, there were other popes about whom magical reputations circulated widely in scholarly circles back in the medieval period, but who did not have the ignominious honour of having grimoires named after them in later centuries.» — el deslinde de fechas: la fama de Honorio parece invención del XVII, y otras famas papales circularon mucho antes

«Rumours of his dabbling in the black arts were circulating from at least the twelfth century when the English chronicler William of Malmesbury, in listing Gerbert’s impressive breadth of scientiWc knowledge, mentioned that he knew ‘the art of calling up spirits from hell’ and had used the ‘art of necromancy’ to discover hidden treasures in Rome.» — el rumor sobre Silvestre II, rastreado a Guillermo de Malmesbury en el XII

«One rumour suggested that he Xed from his study of magic in Toledo after stealing his master’s grimoire.» — la versión de la huida de Toledo con el grimorio robado a su maestro

«The mathematician John Napier (1550–1617) declared that twenty-two popes had been ‘abominable Necromancers’ who had bound themselves to the Devil and used their magic powers to accrue power and wealth.» — el reclamo de John Napier sobre veintidós papas nigromantes, adjudicado a él con su fecha

«John Bale, a friar turned Protestant reformer, concluded that the magic of the popes far exceeded that of the ‘soothsayers of Egypte’.» — y el remate de John Bale, fraile vuelto reformador

«We should not think of monks as cloistered away from the wider community.» — la corrección de una imagen: los monjes no vivían apartados de la comunidad

«William of Auvergne, who was bishop of Paris in the early twelfth century, recalled how while a student he had seen and handled some of the magic books available in the city.» — el testimonio de Guillermo de Auvernia, que de estudiante vio y manejó libros de magia

«In the medieval period universities were essentially religious institutions but they provided a fertile social environment in which clergy and lay scholars intermingled, debated, and pushed boundaries, particularly in the Wfteenth century when the university training of medical and legal professions became increasingly separated from ecclesiastical control.» — las universidades medievales como ambiente fértil para el trato entre clérigos y letrados laicos

«The rather shaky Latin of some surviving medieval grimoires suggests that this group of scholars were signiWcant players in the circulation and practical use of magic books.» — el argumento filológico: el latín flojo de algunos grimorios señala quiénes los hacían circular

«They were part of what has been called the ‘clerical underworld’ of magic.» — el nombre que la historiografía le da a ese grupo

«Considering the clergy had a near monopoly on access to grimoires, at least until the Wfteenth century, it is understandable that clerics who wrote about magic, or who were associated with the major scholarly centres of the occult sciences, would accrue unjustiWed reputations as being the authors of grimoires.» — la consecuencia del monopolio clerical sobre los grimorios hasta el siglo XV

«The Scottish clergyman scientist and astrologer Michael Scot (1175–c.1232) was a critic of magic, but as he was canon of Toledo Cathedral during the height of the translation boom in the city, was proWcient in Hebrew and Arabic, and translated some of the works of Aristotle, rumour later had it that he had also picked up the secrets of necromancy during his stay.» — la posición incómoda de Michael Scot, crítico de la magia y canónigo de Toledo a la vez

«Bacon believed that books falsely ascribed to Solomon ‘ought all to be prohibited by law’, and grumbled at those who ‘put famous titles upon their works and impudently ascribe them to great authors in order to more powerfully allure men to them’.» — lo que Bacon pedía por ley contra los libros falsamente atribuidos a Salomón

«He would be turning in his grave to know that by the mid-sixteenth century John Bale could list numerous Latin occult manuscripts attributed to Bacon, including such suggestive titles as De necromanticis imaginibus and Practicas magiæ.» — y la ironía que Davies subraya: al promediar el XVI se le atribuían a Bacon numerosos manuscritos ocultos

«His interests overlapped with natural magic but otherwise there is no evidence to suggest he had anything to do with the Heptameron, which is concerned entirely with the ritual preparations for composing a magic circle and conjuring the angels.» — búsqueda negativa sobre Pedro de Abano: no hay evidencia que lo vincule con el Heptamerón

«It would appear that, compared to Bacon, a longer period elapsed before d’Abano became associated with grimoires, for the earliest veriWable evidence of the Heptameron is in the mid-sixteenth century.» — la datación de esa asociación, más tardía que la de Bacon

«Of all the magical works falsely attributed to medieval theologians and scientists none was more enduringly inXuential and widespread than those bearing the name Albertus Magnus (c.1193–1280).» — el reclamo comparativo sobre las obras atribuidas a Alberto Magno

«It was not a grimoire but rather a work on the ‘science of magic’.» — y el deslinde de género: no era un grimorio sino una obra sobre la ciencia de la magia

«In other words it was a book of natural magic and medicine like the Kyranides, of which the compiler was aware.» — su parentesco con los Kyranides, que el compilador conocía

«While for some the attraction of magic held out the possibility of such lofty aims as learning languages and the secrets of nature, many owners of grimoires, particularly necromantic ones, had much baser motives on their minds, mostly concerning money and sex.» — el contraste entre los fines altos que se le atribuían a la magia y el uso real de muchos dueños de grimorios

«Treasure hunting did not require magic, and the activity was not in itself heretical or ‘superstitious’, but tradition held that many buried treasures were guarded by ghosts and spirits.» — el matiz sobre la caza de tesoros: no exigía magia ni era herética en sí

«In England, in 1466, Robert Barker of Babraham, Cambridgeshire, was brought before his bishop to answer for having in his possession ‘a book, and a roll of the black art containing characters, circles,» — el caso de Robert Barker en 1466, con el detalle del libro y el rollo

«He was sentenced to public penance, walking around the marketplaces of Ely and Cambridge in bare feet and carrying his books and magical paraphernalia, which were subsequently burned in Cambridge marketplace.» — y su pena, cuya descripción trae la puesta en escena entera

«He confessed, probably under torture, that he and several companions, two of whom were professors at Krakow University, used books to conjure up treasure in the royal zoological garden.» — la confesión de Enrique el Bohemio, probablemente bajo tortura, con dos profesores de Cracovia entre los implicados

«In 1517 Don Campana, a Modenese priest and treasure hunter, confessed that ‘he once had a book, called Clavicula Salomonis, and another book, called Almandel and some other booklets and writings with many love magic instructions, and he said he burned them all.’» — la confesión de Don Campana en 1517, que nombra la Clavicula Salomonis

«Love magic was, indeed, as common a use of grimoires as treasure hunting in the period.» — la equiparación de los dos usos más comunes del grimorio en el periodo

«In the same town in 1410 a notary named Geraud Cassendi was tried by an inquisitor for attempting to debauch women by invoking demons using a magic book and gold scrapings from an image of the Virgin.» — el proceso de Geraud Cassendi en 1410

«The Picatrix was a useful source in this respect, providing advice for both causing and curing magically inspired impotence.» — el Picatrix como fuente para causar y para curar la impotencia

«Sex, inheritance, and political power were major preoccupations of Europe’s aristocracy, and accusations of love magic and poisoning were prominent in the increasing number of cases of heretical magic concerning royal courtiers that were heard during the fourteenth century.» — las preocupaciones de la aristocracia europea y el lugar de la acusación de magia amorosa

«The medieval clergy and nobility did not have a complete monopoly on grimoires.» — el deslinde social: clero y nobleza no tenían el monopolio completo

«There is an account in French chronicles of a poorly educated sorcerer, Arnaud Guillaume, who in 1393 attempted to cure the king of witchcraft.» — el caso de Arnaud Guillaume en 1393, que fue a curar al rey

«He carried with him a grimoire called Smagorad, which gave him power over the stars and planets.» — el grimorio que llevaba y el poder que se le atribuía

«It was said to have been a copy of a book given to Adam by an angel.» — y su genealogía legendaria, remontada a un ángel y a Adán

«A surviving German-language manuscript of the Almandal was included along with advice on horticulture and medicine in the commonplace book of a late Wfteenth-century Augsburg merchant called Claus Spaun.» — el manuscrito alemán del Almandal, encuadernado junto a horticultura y medicina

«His own annotations to the text suggest that he had experimented with its angelic invocations.» — lo que sus anotaciones sugieren sobre el uso real que le dio su dueño

«Women had always been major consumers of literary magic, as the many written amulets for childbirth attest, but examples of women owning or using grimoires is scant before the sixteenth century.» — la asimetría documental: las mujeres consumían magia escrita, pero los ejemplos de posesión de grimorios son otra cosa

«In 1493 Elena Dalok was brought before a London ecclesiastical court charged with being a common slanderer, professing to be able to magically induce rain, and for saying she owned a book that told her of things to come.» — el proceso de Elena Dalok en 1493

«Bernardina Stadera, who was denounced in 1499 for being a ‘charmer, conjurer and procuress’, was accused, along with her lover, a priest, of reading demonic invocations from a manuscript she had borrowed from some friars of Modena.» — el de Bernardina Stadera en 1499, con los tres cargos citados

«The Sworn Book of Honorius instructed that it was not to be given to women.» — la prohibición expresa del Libro Jurado de darse a mujeres

«Rituals often advised that the magician should not associate with the opposite sex while preparing for conjurations and invocations, and that they were to be kept away from ritual paraphernalia.» — y las prescripciones rituales de abstinencia que acompañaban a las conjuraciones

«That is not to say that this misogynistic emphasis was mirrored in the actual use of written magic—as we shall see in the next chapter.» — el límite que Davies le pone a ese énfasis misógino: no se refleja igual en el uso real

«In 1277 the Bishop of Paris issued a condemnation of ‘books, rolls, or booklets containing necromancy or experiments of sorcery, invocations of demons, or conjurations hazardous for souls.’» — la condena del obispo de París en 1277, con la lista de objetos dentro del ancla

«The extent to which the authorities were successful in suppressing their circulation is very diYcult to assess.» — declaración de límite: qué tan bien lograron suprimir la circulación es muy difícil de evaluar

«Does the uneven pattern of surviving grimoires reXect the relative success of the Church authorities and the reach of the inquisitions in diVerent parts of Europe?» — y la pregunta que deja abierta sobre lo que significa el patrón desigual de grimorios conservados

«In 1258 Pope Alexander IV instructed inquisitors ‘not to intrude into investigations of divination or sorcery without knowledge of manifest heresy involved’.» — la instrucción de Alejandro IV a los inquisidores en 1258, que acota su competencia

«But the deWnition of magic as heresy became increasingly all embracing from the late fourteenth century onwards.» — y el ensanchamiento posterior de la magia como herejía desde fines del XIV

«Before 1350 over 70 per cent of those accused of magic in the courts were men, but during the early Wfteenth century between 60 and 70 per cent were female.» — el vuelco de las cifras: antes de 1350 más del setenta por ciento de los acusados eran hombres, y en el XV temprano son mujeres

«The English Catholic clergyman Rowland Philipps warned, ‘we must root out printing or printing will root out us.’» — la advertencia del clérigo Rowland Philipps sobre la imprenta, en primera persona

«And it is no coincidence that the rise of the witch trials during the early sixteenth century occurred in the same period that print was becoming a major cultural force.» — la coincidencia temporal que Davies señala entre el auge de los procesos por brujería y la imprenta como fuerza de masas

«It was demonological books that spread the ideas and fears of this diabolic witchcraft conspiracy, and it was the printed pamphlets detailing their execrable crimes that penetrated far into the conscientiousness of the general population.» — el reparto de papeles entre el libro demonológico y el panfleto

«The laws against witchcraft instituted across Europe during the Wrst half of the sixteenth century were not just concerned with harmful witches: all magic, whether good or bad, was considered the tool of the Devil.» — el alcance de las leyes del XVI: no solo la bruja dañina

«Some demonologists, both Protestant and Catholic, asserted that ‘good witches’ or cunning-folk, in other words those who practised magic to help people by removing spells, detecting stolen goods, and much else besides, were even worse than ‘black’ witches.» — la posición de algunos demonólogos, protestantes y católicos, sobre los llamados buenos brujos

«This was because the victims of witches did not become lost souls, whereas the clients of cunning-folk, by resorting to magic, risked damnation by being complicit in the Devil’s works.» — y el razonamiento que la sostiene, que invierte quién arriesga la condenación

«While the common people shared their enthusiasm for the extermination of witches, they were not, however, so keen to see cunning-folk on the end of a rope, dismembered, or burned to death.» — el desacuerdo popular con esa posición

«Magic was an ambivalent force but a necessary one in most people’s lives, which is why printers, at considerable risk, soon saw the market potential.» — la lectura de Davies sobre por qué los impresores asumieron el riesgo

«In 1528 the warehouse of one Seville printer contained amongst its stock 8,000 printed sheets of no´minas, a thousand of which were hand-coloured.» — el inventario del almacén de un impresor sevillano en 1528

«One of the most popular was the prayer of St Cyprian.» — la oración de san Cipriano entre las más vendidas

«That it was being used in a magical rather than a devotional religious sense, independent of the clergy, is evident from the fact that the Church banned it several decades later.» — el argumento que prueba su uso mágico y no devocional: que la Iglesia la prohibiera

«They also mark the beginning of authoritarian attempts to stop this democratic process.» — y lo que esos intentos marcan a la vez, según Davies: el comienzo de la respuesta autoritaria

«However, there was nothing particularly revolutionary about the Renaissance in intellectual terms, and historians are now increasingly emphasizing that the Xowering of the Renaissance emerged from branches of medieval scholarship.» — la objeción a un lugar común: en términos intelectuales el Renacimiento no tuvo nada de revolucionario

«There was no ‘rebirth’ of magic, no great break with the past, but rather a continuation and development of medieval ideas about the secrets encoded in ancient texts, be they pagan, Jewish, Islamic, or Christian, and the possible role that magic could play as an adjunct of Christian theology.» — y su formulación positiva: no hubo renacimiento de la magia sino continuación y desarrollo de ideas medievales

«There is no evidence that the Brotherhood existed, but the pamphlets generated considerable interest and were quickly translated into other languages.» — búsqueda negativa sobre la Fraternidad rosacruz: no hay evidencia de que existiera

«Trithemius had experimented with drawing benign spirits into crystals, and his most well-known magical work Steganographia (Secret writing), which was written around 1499 but only published in Frankfurt in 1606, posited the existence of an occult code that would enable communication with spirits and angels.» — la Steganographia de Tritemio y sus experimentos con espíritus benignos en cristales

«‘Characters and Seals have likewise in them wonderful virtue, which is not at all contrary to nature, nor superstitious,’ he explained.» — la defensa de Agripa sobre caracteres y sellos, en primera persona dentro del ancla

«All conjurations ‘are against God, and are contrary to his word’.» — y su condena de las conjuraciones, igual de tajante y en la misma voz

«By the end of the sixteenth century the legend that Agrippa kept a demonic familiar in the shape of a black dog was widely believed.» — la leyenda del perro negro de Agripa, extendida a fines del XVI

«The earliest reference to Faust is in a letter written by Trithemius in 1507, in which he is also identiWed» — la mención más temprana de Fausto, en una carta de Tritemio de 1507

«The crucial step in the demonizing of Faust was the publication in German in 1587 of a book regaling stories of his mischievous magical career; how he conjured up and made a pact with Devil, and ultimately ended up being torn to pieces by his satanic master—a Wtting end, of course, for all those who dabbled in the magical arts.» — el paso decisivo de su demonización, con su fecha de imprenta

«Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Faust may have been contemporary magicians but they were very diVerent characters, with divergent and antagonist positions regarding the nature and practice of magic.» — el deslinde que Davies hace entre los tres: contemporáneos, pero de caracteres muy distintos y antagónicos

«Yet the three of them were tarred with the same diabolic reputation, and all three would have their names associated with grimoires of the darkest magic.» — y lo que sin embargo compartieron: la misma fama diabólica y el nombre pegado a grimorios

«The 1587 Faust book fed on the popularity of teufelsb€ucher or Devil’s books in German popular culture during the second half of the sixteenth century.» — el terreno editorial que alimentó al libro de 1587

«The legend’s enduring inXuence was further sealed by the Faust plays of Christopher Marlowe and Goethe.» — la fijación posterior de la leyenda por la vía del teatro, con Marlowe y Goethe nombrados

«Although editions of the Arbatel appeared bearing dates in the early sixteenth century, the Wrst edition, in Latin, was actually printed in Basel in 1575.» — la datación real del Arbatel contra la que declaran sus ediciones

«German translations were soon circulating in manuscript form, usually attributing it to Paracelsus.» — y la atribución que las traducciones alemanas le colgaron

«As to its real author we know nothing,» — búsqueda negativa sobre su autoría: no se sabe nada del autor real

«though he was clearly learned in medieval and Renaissance magic and a follower of Paracelsus and Hermeticism.» — lo que sí puede decirse de él por su contenido

«The publication of the Arbatel in Basel scandalized the town’s theologians.» — el escándalo que su publicación provocó entre los teólogos de Basilea

«The pastor Simon Sulzer denounced it from his pulpit.» — la denuncia del pastor Simon Sulzer desde el púlpito

«though there is no evidence that any other action was taken.» — y el límite del episodio: no hay evidencia de que se tomara otra medida

«In 1617 senior members of the Protestant University of Marburg investigated the curriculum being taught at the town’s school by the Paracelsian and Rosicrucian schoolmaster Philipp Homagius and his colleague Georg Zimmermann.» — la investigación de 1617 en Marburgo sobre lo que se enseñaba en la escuela

«A search of their lodgings revealed copies of the Arbatel printed in editions of Agrippa’s Opera, and it transpired that they had even intended to introduce the Arbatel as a school textbook.» — lo que el registro de los alojamientos reveló

«In his own copy Homagius noted, ‘I wrote this and was happy to complete it on 4 May 1617.» — la nota que Homagius puso en su propio ejemplar, con fecha y en primera persona

«A copy was also found on a student who was so absorbed in it that for more than a year and a half after having been expelled he did not attend any lectures, ‘nor was he inclined to do so’.» — el caso del estudiante que siguió absorto en el libro año y medio después de expulsado

«The long arms and beady eyes of the papal censors did not reach these Protestant areas.» — el deslinde geográfico de la censura papal

«It would be going too far, though, to claim that print revolutionized the European grimoire tradition at this period.» — la moderación expresa de Davies: sería ir demasiado lejos decir que la imprenta revolucionó la tradición del grimorio en ese momento

«It certainly introduced inXuential new texts into the canon, signiWcantly increased the pool of available magical knowledge, and heightened authoritarian concerns over their dissemination and inXuence.» — y lo que sí concede que hizo

«It has been said that the reason for this was because printed editions had no intrinsic value, as high magic required the ritualized transcription and consecration of each individual grimoire.» — la explicación que se ha dado del apego al manuscrito, con la transmisión ritualizada de por medio

«The fact is that demand for print conjurations outstripped supply and so manuscripts continued to be produced in their thousands.» — el hecho que Davies contrapone: la demanda superó a la oferta impresa y los manuscritos siguieron por miles

«In Italy the Clavicule of Solomon was clearly the most ubiquitous and widely circulated grimoire.» — la Clavícula como el grimorio más difundido en Italia

«The same holds true for Spain, and the copy conWscated from a priest in Gran Canaria in 1527 shows that wherever the Spanish clergy were to be found so to was the Clavicule.» — y su alcance por la vía del clero español, probado por la copia confiscada en Gran Canaria en 1527

«It is important to point out that in the manuscript grimoire tradition few works were ever quite the same.» — la advertencia sobre la naturaleza del objeto: en la tradición manuscrita casi ninguna obra era igual a otra

«There was no founding text, no print template for the Clavicule for instance.» — y su consecuencia: no hay texto fundacional ni plantilla impresa de la Clavícula

«When in 1627 an Italian Benedictine monk named Stefano Peranda Xed his abbey after hearing he had been denounced to the Inquisition he left behind in his cell a manuscript entitled Zecorbeni seu clavicula Salomonis.» — el caso del benedictino Stefano Peranda, que huyó al saberse denunciado

«It has been suggested that Aubrey may have tried out some of its contents.» — la sugerencia de que Aubrey pudo probar su contenido, consignada como sugerencia

«Summers provided a lurid two-page account of ‘this mysterious and menacing personage’ who apparently confessed to the Inquisition that he was ‘the Grand Master and preceptor of a band of Satanists, who with infernal malice were leagued to spread the pestilence by all means they could devise’.» — el relato de Summers sobre el personaje, con su propio adjetivo dentro

«In fact there is no evidence of a Milanese medical man of that name having been executed in Milan for plague-spreading at the time.» — y la búsqueda negativa que lo desarma: no hay evidencia de tal médico milanés ejecutado por propagar la peste

«Summers seems to have mixed up the two Moras, and then invented the diabolic element, for Mora was never questioned by the Milanese authorities about satanic worship or magical practices.» — la reconstrucción del error: Summers confundió a dos Mora y añadió el elemento diabólico

«As I indicated earlier, manuscript grimoires, particularly those that increasingly circulated in popular culture, often consisted mostly of the bricolage of oral and print sources of practical occult knowledge rather than conjurations and endless spirit descriptions.» — la composición real de los grimorios manuscritos que circulaban en la cultura popular

«Astrological almanacs became hugely popular in the seventeenth century, and their lists of good and bad days, weather forecasts, and useful proverbs seeped deep into the agricultural world of the common people, and were scribbled into the pages of grimoires.» — los almanaques astrológicos como vehículo, con sus listas de días buenos y malos

«Like Paracelsus he denounced spirit conjuration but unlike Agrippa he never disavowed natural magic.» — la posición doble de un autor: denuncia la conjuración de espíritus como Paracelso, y a diferencia de Agripa nunca reniega de la magia natural

«As this case suggests, and others conWrm, a key reason for the proliferation of such unoYcial exorcism was the increasing public access to the many exorcism manuals in Italian and Latin pouring oV the presses of Bologna, Milan, and Venice during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.» — la razón que Davies adjudica a la proliferación del exorcismo no oficial

«Yet, as Protestant theologians never tired of pointing out, there was little or no diVerence between exorcism and conjuration, as both involved talking to Devils.» — la objeción que los teólogos protestantes repetían sobre la identidad entre exorcismo y conjuración

«Conjurations were often no more than tweaked versions of the oYcial rites of exorcism, so it is no wonder that the printed exorcism manuals resembled magic books in some respects.» — y el dato formal que la sostiene: las conjuraciones eran versiones retocadas del rito oficial

«The most inXuential author of exorcism manuals at this time was the Franciscan exorcist Girolamo Menghi, some of whose various popular works were also published in Frankfurt.» — Girolamo Menghi como el autor más influyente de manuales de exorcismo

«As inquisitorial and ecclesiastical records show, in such hands his manuals were used as grimoires for such purposes as treasure seeking and curing impotency.» — y el uso que los registros inquisitoriales documentan para esos manuales

«Brugnoli attacked the practice of touching the female genitalia and breasts during exorcisms, but that is exactly what Nazare´ did, even going so far as to copulate with the possessed.» — la objeción de Brugnoli a una práctica, y lo que Nazaré hacía exactamente

«The Inquisition banished him to a remote monastery for Wve years, forbade him from forever exorcizing again, but allowed him to remain a priest.» — la pena impuesta por la Inquisición, con sus tres partes

«Several of these exorcism manuals, including Menghi’s, were belatedly added to the papal Index in 1709, but by this time the Church had been complicit in spreading the magical use of exorcisms at the same time as its courts were attempting to suppress lay and ecclesiastical ‘superstition’.» — la incorporación tardía de esos manuales al Índice en 1709, cuando ya era otro el escenario

«By the late sixteenth century surviving grimoires show that Oberion had become Wrmly identiWed as a fairy rather than one of the legions of other spirits and demons.» — el cambio de estatuto de Oberion, de legión demoníaca a hada

«It is surely the work of Shakespeare and Jonson, and their portrayals of Queen Mab, queen of the fairies, which inXuenced the subsequent reference to her in conjurations.» — la influencia que Davies adjudica al teatro en esa mutación

«Democratization As historians quite rightly revise the ‘newness’ of Renaissance occultism, the real revolution has gone largely unremarked—the democratization of high magic.» — la tesis del capítulo: mientras se revisa la novedad del ocultismo renacentista, la revolución real ha pasado inadvertida

«Print was a key factor in the trickle down of literary magic, as was the growing dissemination of vernacular manuscripts, but both developments were fuelled by an expanding market for literary magic.» — los dos factores del goteo hacia abajo, y ninguno basta solo

«The shockingly poor level of education and professionalism of many priests was no secret on the eve of the Reformation.» — el estado de la formación del clero en vísperas de la Reforma, que no era secreto

«The pattern of clerical education in 1500 was by no means uniform, but in the Netherlands only 20 per cent of the clergy were university-trained and the situation was little better in northern German states.» — la cifra de los Países Bajos, con su reserva sobre la falta de uniformidad

«In 1551 the Bishop of Gloucester, England, found 168 priests in his diocese could not even repeat the Ten Commandments properly.» — el hallazgo del obispo de Gloucester en 1551

«A Danish Church Ordinance of 1627 required all prospective Lutheran ministers to obtain a university degree.» — la ordenanza danesa de 1627 que exige título universitario

«A study of ministers in the Lutheran German duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenb€uttel reveals that, by 1630, 80 per cent were university-trained, though not necessarily obtaining degrees in theology.» — y la medición del cambio en Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel hacia 1630

«While even semi-literate Catholic clergy had an advantage in the magical market through their exploitation of consecrated items and their ordained status, the ability to exploit literary magic and employ the numerous Latin exorcism manuals now available—as well as fully understand the Latin Vulgate—would have further enhanced their status amongst the laity.» — la ventaja de mercado que Davies le atribuye al clero católico incluso semiletrado

«It is no wonder, as one historian has suggested, that many members of this ‘ecclesiastical proletariat’ were tempted to use their educational advantage to explore the money-making possibilities of magic.» — y la tentación que un historiador le adjudica a ese proletariado eclesiástico

«On being sentenced to a spell in the galleys, he had passed it on to his pupil, the brother-in-law of a lawyer.» — el destino del libro tras la condena a galeras: pasó al discípulo

«Until the second half of the seventeenth century astrology was a widely accepted and practised component of the medical sciences, and was sometimes a gateway to experimentation in the magical arts.» — el estatuto de la astrología hasta la segunda mitad del XVII, dentro de las ciencias médicas

«A disreputable Tudor astrologer-physician named Gregory Wisdom inherited a mysterious book from his father described as a ‘book in English called the Practice of Dammell’.» — el libro heredado por Gregory Wisdom, descrito en el propio expediente

«By no means all early modern astrologers were magicians.» — el deslinde con que abre: no todo astrólogo moderno temprano era mago

«The astrological and magical arts were not inseparable, and some astrologers condemned magic outright and not just conjuration.» — y su refuerzo: algunos astrólogos condenaban la magia de plano, no solo la conjuración

«Nevertheless, many theologians suspected otherwise and ‘scientiWc’ astrologers were vulnerable to accusations of sorcery.» — pero la sospecha teológica los alcanzaba igual

«In 1622 Patrick Sinot, an Irish Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Santiago, was accused of possessing books of necromancy containing magical signs, circles, and characters, though the evidence suggests his library was purely astrological and perhaps Kabbalistic.» — el caso de Patrick Sinot en 1622, profesor de retórica en Santiago

«Similarly in 1608 the Catalonia tribunal charged the astrologer Joseph Sala with practising sorcery and incantations, though the only forbidden book they found was a copy of an inXuential treatise by the thirteenth-century Italian astrologer Guido Bonatti.» — y el de Joseph Sala en 1608, con la reserva sobre lo único que se le halló

«The clearest sign of the democratization process was the possession of magic books by artisans, tradesmen, apothecaries, and craftsmen, men who, in the early modern period, usually had an education and an increasing degree of social and geographical mobility.» — la señal más clara de la democratización, y es de oficios: artesanos, comerciantes, boticarios

«This is exempliWed by a magical healer named Nicolas Noel le Bragard, from the town of Nancy, in eastern France.» — el caso de Nicolas Noel le Bragard, sanador de Nancy

«He had tried out a variety of magical rituals contained in his grimoires for ‘enjoying a woman’, detecting stolen property, and Wnding treasure, but the results had been generally disappointing.» — los usos que confesó haber probado, enumerados

«He was clearly well versed in grimoire magic though, and confessed his knowledge of the Clavicula Salomonis and was asked about the Salomonis Lemegethan.» — su conocimiento de la Clavicula Salomonis, declarado en el interrogatorio

«Towards the end of his interrogation he explained that when magic had been taught publicly in Toledo the Spanish Jews had assigned the authorship of magic books to St Paul, St Barnabe´, St Leon, Charlemagne, and Albert le Grand, as well as to Abel, Enoch, and Abraham.» — y su explicación sobre Toledo y el reparto que atribuye a los judíos españoles

«Vernacular grimoires also penetrated further down the social scale, though rarely to labourers and unskilled workers» — el límite de la penetración social: rara vez llegaba a jornaleros y no cualificados

«There is no doubt that across Europe more and more women had access to book knowledge considered to be the rightful preserve of men.» — el acceso creciente de las mujeres a un saber libresco tenido por reserva masculina

«Protestantism may have encouraged the limited education of girls, but the general educated consensus was that their reading material should be restricted much more than men’s.» — y el consenso educado sobre qué debían leer, pese al estímulo protestante

«Women had always played an important role as simple healers, and it was accepted that they had some natural medical instincts in terms of midwifery, though that was being undermined at the time by the professionalization of the medical establishment.» — el papel aceptado de la mujer como sanadora simple

«The idea of women of humble origin practising medicine informed by literary texts was far less acceptable.» — y dónde estaba el límite de esa aceptación

«This was undoubtedly increasingly happening, though, and the rather sparse evidence of it suggests that female healers were usually obtaining their book knowledge from male practitioners.» — la escasez de evidencia y lo que sugiere sobre cómo obtenían los textos

«Anneke, a widow living with her farmer son, had been to school and could read.» — el caso de Anneke, que había ido a la escuela y sabía leer

«Her medical knowledge derived from several herbal books in her possession, from shepherds and cowherds, and from her mother who had been a maid to a barber and medical man.» — y las tres vías de su saber médico, incluida su madre

«Anne Bodenham, a Wiltshire cunning-woman executed for witchcraft in 1653, claimed to have been instructed in the ways of ritual magic from her time as the servant to the notorious and inXuential Jacobean astrologer-physician John Lambe, who was murdered by a London mob in 1628.» — el reclamo de Anne Bodenham sobre quién la instruyó

«Whether this was true or not, the point is that they felt it necessary to broadcast their relations with well-known male practitioners and the access that had given them to literary magic.» — y lo que a Davies le importa del reclamo, sea cierto o no

«Some prostitute-magicians also had opportunities to draw on the grimoires possessed by their regular clients.» — la vía de acceso de algunas prostitutas magas, por los libros de sus clientes

«Cassar possessed several prohibited magic manuscripts including the Clavicule of Solomon and a work by Peter d’Abano, which he said he had obtained from a brass-worker and friend in Messina.» — los manuscritos prohibidos que Cassar poseía

«He had also learned Arabic from a Moorish slave who had oVered to teach him astrological invocations and necromancy.» — y de quién dijo haber aprendido árabe e invocaciones

«Gioanna, who claimed she was illiterate, said she knew Cassar had books and writings on magic and kept them in his home, but said she did not know what they contained.» — la declaración de Gioanna, que se dijo analfabeta

«Once Cassar got wind of the Inquisition’s interest in his activities he hid his books and sent Gioanna to Naples on a trip so that the inquisitors would not be able to interrogate her.» — y lo que Cassar hizo al enterarse del interés de la Inquisición

«The Jesuit theologian Martı´n Del Rio believed the spread of grimoires generated two types of implicit diabolic pacts.» — la doctrina que Davies adjudica al jesuita Martín Del Rio: la sola difusión de los grimorios bastaba para generar dos clases de pacto diabólico implícito, sin invocación expresa

«Del Rio stated that bishops did not have authority to burn magic books.» — y el límite jurisdiccional que Del Rio ponía dentro de esa misma alarma: quemar libros de magia no era facultad de los obispos

«Unfortunately we do not know the ruling of the adjudicating Parlement of Toulouse.» — Davies se abstiene de cerrar el caso porque el fallo del Parlement de Toulouse no se conserva; declara el hueco documental en vez de suponer la condena

«Considering his close relationship with Agrippa, he unsurprisingly attacked the spurious Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, describing it as ‘pure nonsense, an undone broom with straws scattered everywhere. You can make nothing of it, even if you are an enthusiastic student of this vanity.’» — consigna como espurio el Cuarto libro de filosofía oculta atribuido a Agripa, y recoge que Del Rio, cercano a Agripa, fue quien lo atacó con esos términos

«The 1583 edition of De præstigiis dæmonum included an appendix called the Pseudomonarchia daemonum, which was a catalogue of the hierarchy of demons, their powers, and the means of adjuring them to appear.» — data en la edición de 1583 de De praestigiis daemonum la aparición del apéndice Pseudomonarchia daemonum, catálogo de la jerarquía demoníaca y de los medios de conjurarla

«Yet Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft was a treasure trove of magical information, providing spells, Catholic prayers, exorcisms, charms, talismans, and rituals on how to communicate with angels, demons, and the spirits of the dead.» — señala la paradoja del libro de Reginald Scot: escrito contra la brujería, su Discoverie of Witchcraft entrega hechizos, oraciones católicas, exorcismos, talismanes y rituales de comunicación con ángeles y demonios

«So Scot produced what amounted to the Wrst grimoire printed in the English language, and while he did so to prove the worthlessness of its contents he unwittingly ended up democratizing ritual magic rather than undermining it.» — y de ahí su tesis de imprenta: Scot produjo el primer grimorio impreso en lengua inglesa —Wrst por first, ligadura que el OCR pierde— y, queriendo probar que no valía nada, terminó democratizando la magia ritual

«Not long after its publication, the practical magic and protective Catholic prayers it contained were being transcribed and incorporated into manuscript grimoires.» — la prueba de circulación que ofrece: poco después de publicado, su contenido práctico se transcribía a grimorios manuscritos

«The evidence of the witch trials does not support the demonologists’ worries concerning the explicit relationship between grimoires, witchcraft, and diabolism.» — su búsqueda negativa central: las actas de los procesos de brujería no sostienen la relación entre grimorios, brujería y diabolismo que temían los demonólogos

«In the Swedish witch trial records there are also very few references to magic books.» — el mismo hallazgo negativo medido en Suecia, donde las actas apenas mencionan libros de magia

«Likewise, a study of the records in the Alpine Jura region revealed ‘practically no traces anywhere . . . of magicians taking their recipes directly from books’.» — y el estudio del Jura alpino que cita, sin prácticamente rastro de magos tomando sus recetas de libros

«Around 134 trials are known to have occurred in this former Danish territory, and nearly a third of them involved grimoires, written spells, or runes and symbols derived from them.» — contra ese fondo, la excepción islandesa que sí cuantifica: de unos 134 procesos, cerca de un tercio involucraron grimorios, hechizos escritos o runas derivadas de ellos

«Iceland had one of the most impressive literacy rates in early modern Europe, thanks in part to the comparative ease with which the Lutheran church controlled and educated a small, albeit dispersed population.» — explica la densidad islandesa de grimorios por la alfabetización: Islandia tenía una de las tasas más altas de la Europa moderna temprana, gracias en parte a la facilidad con que la iglesia luterana educaba a una población pequeña y dispersa

«Then again, literacy rates were equally impressive in Sweden, and as we have seen magic books were comparatively uncommon in the trials there.» — y él mismo desarma esa explicación: Suecia tenía tasas igual de altas y allí los libros de magia fueron poco comunes en los procesos

«The Wrst person to be sentenced for witchcraft in Reformation Iceland was a minister named Oddur Gottska´lksson, who was found guilty of rape supposedly inspired by the magic contained in grimoires found in his possession.» — el primer condenado por brujería en la Islandia de la Reforma fue un ministro luterano, y la culpa adjudicada fue violación supuestamente inspirada por la magia de los grimorios hallados en su poder

«The democratization of grimoires through the circulation of print and vernacular manuscripts, the growth of literacy, and social mobility occurred despite the concerted attempts to control the book trade.» — su tesis de fondo sobre el periodo: la democratización del grimorio vino de la circulación impresa y manuscrita en lengua vulgar, del crecimiento de la alfabetización y de la movilidad social, y ocurrió a pesar del control del comercio de libros, no en su ausencia

«By far the most inXuential, though, were the papal Indexes of Prohibited Books produced from 1559 onwards.» — data desde 1559 la serie de Índices papales de libros prohibidos y los declara los más influyentes de todas las listas de censura

«The 1559 Index followed a Venetian list produced Wve years earlier in banning works of geomancy, hydromancy, pyromancy, and necromancy, but then broadened out to cover all magic arts along with chiromancy, physiognomy, and other branches of divination.» — y precisa que el Índice de 1559 siguió a una lista veneciana de cinco años antes, ampliando la prohibición de las cuatro adivinaciones elementales a todas las artes mágicas, la quiromancia y la fisiognomía

«Of those books speciWcally mentioned, the most pertinent to our study were the Clavicule of Solomon, already condemned in the Venetian Index, the books of Hermes, and the works of Agrippa.» — los títulos que el Índice nombra y que le interesan: la Clavícula de Salomón, ya condenada en el veneciano, los libros de Hermes y las obras de Agripa

«A 1586 papal bull of Sixtus V further reinforced the censorship of books on judicial astrology.» — y la bula de Sixto V de 1586, que reforzó la censura de la astrología judiciaria

«As one historian has pointed out, though, these published Indexes were probably counter-productive in that they served to inform and excite public interest in the very books of magic they were meant to suppress.» — recoge de otro historiador la objeción de que los Índices publicados fueron probablemente contraproducentes: informaban y excitaban el interés por los libros de magia que venían a suprimir

«But it was not as eVective as some have depicted it, as some inquisitors pointed out at the time.» — objeta la fama del Santo Oficio español como censor implacable: no fue tan eficaz como algunos lo han pintado, y algunos inquisidores lo señalaban en su tiempo

«Yet despite all their attentions the Inquisition could not prevent Jewish texts being smuggled in from Italy and the Netherlands.» — y lo mide por su fracaso: pese a toda su atención, la Inquisición no pudo impedir el contrabando de textos judíos desde Italia y los Países Bajos

«In 1529 the Spanish Franciscan Martı´n de Castan˜ega warned, It is vanity, lack of faith, superstition, and even a judaizing trick to use the name of the ancient Hebrew in Catholic and Christian invocations as if the old names were worth more than the new ones.» — la voz del franciscano Martín de Castañega en 1529, para quien usar los nombres del hebreo antiguo en invocaciones cristianas era vanidad, falta de fe, superstición y hasta treta judaizante

«A Jew practising magic was not heresy but a converted Jew doing likewise was a quite diVerent matter, and of great interest to the Inquisition.» — la distinción jurisdiccional que ordena todo el capítulo: un judío que practicaba magia no cometía herejía, pero un converso que hacía lo mismo sí, y eso lo volvía asunto del Santo Oficio

«The Inquisition called in a converted Jew to assess the content of the books and manuscripts they conWscated from Levi, and he concluded that none of them were openly magical.» — el resultado negativo del peritaje que consigna: la Inquisición llamó a un judío converso a evaluar los libros confiscados a Levi, y él concluyó que ninguno era abiertamente mágico

«Whether this proved they were practising Islam is another matter, for Spanish Christians also employed alherces.» — y su reparo ante la prueba de islamización morisca: llevar alherces no acredita práctica del islam, porque también los cristianos españoles los usaban

«In 1609 the abbot of Urdax in the Basque region complained that on the route from Bayonne in southwestern France right down to Pamplona there was not one Inquisition agent in position to examine the mule caravans for heretical books.» — la queja del abad de Urdax en 1609, que en toda la ruta de Bayona a Pamplona no había un solo agente inquisitorial para revisar las recuas de mulas en busca de libros heréticos

«In 1547 the archdiocese of Toulouse instructed clergy and civil oYcials to visit all booksellers in the city, and between 1530 and 1560 the Parlement of Toulouse charged some forty people with possessing heretical books.» — las cifras de la represión francesa del otro lado: en 1547 la archidiócesis de Toulouse mandó visitar a todos los libreros de la ciudad, y entre 1530 y 1560 el Parlement acusó a unas cuarenta personas de poseer libros heréticos

«The authorities were particularly suspicious of anyone associated with Geneva, and a royal edict of 1551 instructed that those bearing books from Calvin’s city were to be prosecuted ‘as heretics and disturbers of public peace and tranquillity’.» — y el edicto real de 1551 que mandaba procesar como herejes y perturbadores de la paz pública a quienes portaran libros de la ciudad de Calvino

«He claimed he ‘had read much in Castilian universities, including the Pentacles of Solomon’.» — lo que el propio acusado alegó como currículo mágico: haber leído mucho en universidades castellanas, incluidos los Pentáculos de Salomón

«‘In the year 1568,’ he declared, ‘the Italians and Spaniards going to the Low Countries carried notes full of sorceries that had been given them as guarantees against all misfortunes.’» — la voz de Jean Bodin, que en 1568 daba por infección diabólica los papeles llenos de sortilegios que italianos y españoles llevaban a los Países Bajos como garantía contra toda desgracia

«They said they had learned their magical arts in Toledo.» — y la procedencia que declararon los detenidos, que remite otra vez a la fama nigromántica de Toledo

«A decree of the Congregation of the Holy OYce issued in 1573 ordered the burning of all books of magic conWscated and archived by the tribunals because the numbers of them were becoming unmanageable.» — data en 1573 el decreto de la Congregación del Santo Oficio que ordenó quemar todos los libros de magia confiscados y archivados por los tribunales, porque su número se había vuelto inmanejable

«They were, however, pretty eVective in controlling the development of the printing industry, in Spain in particular.» — concede que las Inquisiciones sí fueron eficaces en una cosa: controlar el desarrollo de la industria tipográfica, y en España en particular

«Yet the restrictions merely led to a Xourishing Spanish language publishing industry outside the country and the development of smuggling operations that funnelled large numbers of forbidden Spanish books produced by printers in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.» — pero mide el efecto contrario que eso produjo: una industria editorial en español floreciente fuera del país y redes de contrabando que metían los libros prohibidos impresos en Francia y los Países Bajos

«Longo paid a terrible price for trading in such books and was drowned on the orders of the Inquisition in 1588.» — el precio que pagó el librero Pietro Longo por traficar con esos libros: la Inquisición mandó ahogarlo en 1588

«The legacy of the Inquisitions is evident from the fact that while the boom in populist publishing during the eighteenth century led to a massive proliferation of cheap grimoires, little was produced in Italy or Spain: the Xow of books was decidedly from north to south.» — y el legado editorial que Davies adjudica a las Inquisiciones: cuando el siglo XVIII multiplicó los grimorios baratos, Italia y España casi no produjeron nada, y el flujo se invirtió

«Towards the end of the sixteenth century the Inquisitions’ attentions began to shift away from heresy towards ‘superstition’ and moral crimes.» — data a fines del siglo XVI el desplazamiento del interés inquisitorial, de la herejía hacia la superstición y los delitos morales

«The prayer to Saint Martha to provoke love was particularly widespread across the Mediterranean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.» — la difusión mediterránea que documenta para la oración a santa Marta destinada a provocar amor, en los siglos XVI y XVII

«A study of the early modern Inquisition records of Toledo indicates that some 87 per cent of women were illiterate over the period, and a similar Wgure has been estimated for women in sixteenth-century Italy.» — la cifra con que mide el techo de la magia escrita en manos de mujeres: en las actas inquisitoriales de Toledo un 87 por ciento de las mujeres eran analfabetas, y se estima algo similar para la Italia del XVI

«But women, even illiterate women, were evidently taking advantage of literary magic and print culture, servicing both a female and a literate male clientele in the love magic market.» — y aun así sostiene que las mujeres, incluso analfabetas, se aprovechaban de la magia literaria y de la cultura impresa para servir a una clientela femenina y a otra masculina y letrada

«Written copies accrued more potency than those held in oral memory, while those recorded in books were more eYcacious than charms written on loose sheets.» — la jerarquía de eficacia que reconstruye de las declaraciones: lo escrito valía más que lo guardado en la memoria oral, y lo registrado en un libro más que lo escrito en hojas sueltas

«So the high rates of illiteracy were not a barrier to the exploitation of literary magic, but the vast majority of grimoires still continued to rest in the hands of men rather than women.» — de donde su conclusión doble: el analfabetismo no impedía explotar la magia literaria, pero la enorme mayoría de los grimorios siguió en manos de hombres

«The male dominance of treasure hunting, for instance, has more to do with the lack of most women’s ability to read grimoires than any engrained gendered division of magical practice in society.» — y su corrección a la lectura de género fácil: que el rastreo de tesoros fuera cosa de hombres tiene más que ver con que pocas mujeres podían leer un grimorio que con una división mágica arraigada en la sociedad

«The concept of the written pact between witches and the Devil has received less attention from historians, and yet throws up interesting questions about contemporary views of women, literacy, and books.» — declara poco atendida por los historiadores la variante escrita del pacto diabólico, y la propone como puerta a lo que la época pensaba de las mujeres, la lectura y los libros

«The trial evidence shows clearly that the learned and popular conception of the witches’ written pact was distinct from that of the classic Faustian pact.» — la distinción que las actas le imponen: la concepción culta y popular del pacto escrito de las brujas no era la del pacto fáustico clásico

«The signing of the Devil’s book or parchment is a comparatively uncommon means of pact-making in the trial records of Continental Europe.» — y la búsqueda negativa que la acota: firmar el libro del Diablo es una forma de pacto poco frecuente en las actas de la Europa continental

«It is certainly the case that most examples of written witch pacts in England were recorded during the Puritan ascendancy of the Civil War period, and in particular during the East Anglian witch hunt orchestrated by the puritan witch-Wnder Matthew Hopkins between 1645 and 1647.» — sitúa los pactos escritos ingleses en un momento y un agente concretos: casi todos se registraron durante el ascendiente puritano de la Guerra Civil, y sobre todo en la caza orquestada en Anglia Oriental

«It is likely the written pact became more prominent at this time due to the Puritan parliamentary emphasis on signing or marking oaths and covenants, such as the Protestation Oath of 1641, the Vow and Covenant of 1643, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644.» — y propone la causa: el énfasis parlamentario puritano en firmar juramentos y pactos, del Protestation Oath de 1641 al Vow and Covenant de 1643

«Although the Devil’s book was not a grimoire the two were easily conXated in the minds of the suspicious, particularly with regard to women.» — la confusión que le importa deslindar: el libro del Diablo no era un grimorio, pero uno y otro se confundían con facilidad en la cabeza de los suspicaces, sobre todo tratándose de mujeres

«A detailed study of trials in the Brazilian province of Pernambuco between 1590 and 1810 reveals that of 692 crimes heard by the Inquisition 57 concerned witchcraft and magic, but only 3 concerned the possession of prohibited books.» — la cifra que desinfla la censura colonial brasileña: de 692 delitos oídos por la Inquisición en Pernambuco entre 1590 y 1810, 57 fueron de brujería y magia y solo 3 de posesión de libros prohibidos

«But the only concrete evidence of the use of a grimoire in Peru concerns an embroiderer, Diego de la Rosa, who was accused of necromancy in 1580.» — declara que la única prueba concreta de uso de un grimorio en el Perú es la de un bordador acusado de nigromancia en 1580

«He possessed a manuscript in his own handwriting ‘with many characters, Greek and Hebrew letters and other evil things’, which he had lent to others to make copies.» — y describe lo que se le halló: un manuscrito de su puño con caracteres, letras griegas y hebreas, que prestaba para que otros lo copiaran

«In terms of the Xow and quantity of forbidden books in circulation in the Spanish Americas it was the Mexican censors who had the most work to do in stemming the tide.» — adjudica a los censores de México la mayor carga de trabajo de toda la América española por el volumen de libros prohibidos en circulación

«The Inquisition conWscated 1,592 volumes, which meant that Pe´rez de Soto must have had one of the most extensive private libraries in the colony, particularly for someone of a relatively modest social position.» — la cifra del caso Pérez de Soto: 1 592 volúmenes confiscados, una de las bibliotecas privadas más extensas de la colonia para alguien de posición social modesta

«As to the charges against him, he certainly possessed numerous learned discourses on astrology, two works on physiognomy, and an early sixteenth-century treatise on alchemy.» — lo que en esa biblioteca sostenía los cargos: discursos de astrología, dos obras de fisiognomía y un tratado de alquimia de comienzos del XVI

«While still under investigation Pe´rez de Soto was killed by his prison cellmate.» — y el final del proceso, que quedó sin sentencia porque su compañero de celda lo mató mientras se le investigaba

«The censors identiWed ten works that required further investigation.» — de todo el acervo, los censores apartaron diez obras para examen ulterior

«An Italian edition of Piemontese’s Secrets caused some consternation to the censors as only the Spanish edition was listed in the Spanish Index, while a book falsely attributed to Peter d’Abano led to some head scratching.» — entre las dudas de esos censores anota dos de atribución y edición: una edición italiana de los Secretos de Piamontés cuando el Índice español solo listaba la castellana, y un libro falsamente atribuido a Pietro d'Abano

«Indeed, the Wrst governor of Connecticut, John Winthrop Jr (1606–76), a practising alchemist, possessed a wide range of esoteric works.» — el dato de biblioteca con que abre Nueva Inglaterra: el primer gobernador de Connecticut era alquimista practicante y poseía obras esotéricas en cantidad

«He owned the alchemist Thomas Vaughan’s, Magia Adamica (London, 1650), John Heydon’s The Rosie Crucian infallible axiomata (London, 1660), and ‘Magica natur’, which was probably a copy of Porta’s Natural Magic.» — y los títulos que enumera en ese acervo, de la Magia Adamica de Thomas Vaughan a lo que probablemente era la Magia natural de Della Porta

«To this end the Massachusetts General Court empowered four ministers to ‘allowe or prohibit printing’.» — la forma que tomó allí la censura: la Corte General de Massachusetts facultó a cuatro ministros para permitir o prohibir impresiones

«It was easy at Wrst to control the nascent American print industry, but once again censoring the Xow of books from abroad proved an impossible task without instigating a ruthless stop-and-search policy.» — y su límite, el mismo que ya midió en Europa: controlar la imprenta naciente fue fácil, censurar el flujo de libros venidos de fuera resultó imposible sin registrar a todo el mundo

«During her trial in 1669, for example, Katherine Harrison of WethersWeld, Connecticut, a wealthy woman who had arrived in America around 1651, said she had learned fortune-telling from reading ‘Mr Lilly’s book’ while living in England.» — la vía de entrada que documenta en un proceso de 1669: la acusada declaró haber aprendido a decir la buenaventura leyendo el libro de Lilly cuando vivía en Inglaterra

«These are likely to have been idle threats or slanderous comments rather than proof that manuscripts of spirit conjuration were» — se abstiene de tomar las amenazas de conjurar espíritus como prueba de que circularan manuscritos de conjuración: las llama más probablemente bravatas o calumnias

«It was the fear that diabolic grimoires were circulating, rather than the reality, that nurtured the prominence given to the concept of the Devil’s book during the devastating Salem trials» — y de ahí su tesis sobre Salem: lo que dio al libro del Diablo su lugar en los procesos fue el miedo a que circularan grimorios diabólicos, no que circularan

«It has been suggested that this preoccupation related to authoritarian concerns over the recent growth of America’s printing presses and the production of explicitly astrological almanacs from the 1680s onwards.» — recoge de otros la sugerencia de que esa preocupación se ligaba al reciente crecimiento de las imprentas americanas y a los almanaques astrológicos desde la década de 1680

«One woman who confessed to pacting with the Devil described how the Devil wrote her name in a book ‘that looked like an almanac’.» — la imagen que una confesa dio del objeto, un libro que parecía un almanaque, tan cerca del impreso corriente como del pacto

«Because of their religion and their social status, seventeenth-century New England colonialists had a signiWcantly higher literacy rate than those in the country they left—around 60 per cent male literacy compared to less than 40 per cent in England.» — la cifra de alfabetización con que explica el peso del libro en esas colonias: cerca del 60 por ciento de alfabetización masculina en la Nueva Inglaterra del XVII, más que en el país del que habían salido

«In 1678 the lieutenant general of the Paris police, Nicolas de la Reynie, began to uncover circumstantial evidence of a plot to poison Louis XIV.» — data en 1678 el inicio del Asunto de los Venenos, cuando el teniente general de policía de París empezó a reunir indicios de un complot para envenenar a Luis XIV

«The more the Paris police delved into the murky world of the supply and administration of poisons in the capital the more it became clear that the trade was part of a wider, thriving network of professional magical practice.» — y lo que la pesquisa reveló, que es lo que le interesa: el tráfico de venenos era parte de una red más amplia y próspera de practicantes profesionales de la magia

«A grimoire called the Enchiridium was most frequently mentioned in the police records, and its identity is conWrmed by one interrogation where the ‘Enchiridium Leonis papæ’ was mentioned.» — identifica el grimorio más nombrado en las actas policiales parisinas y fija su identidad por un interrogatorio donde se le nombra completo

«Over forty priests were arrested and it would seem that magic books circulated widely among them.» — la cifra clerical del Asunto de los Venenos: más de cuarenta sacerdotes detenidos, y libros de magia circulando entre ellos

«The language of the Edict of 1682 also made it clear that magic was a pernicious belief rather than a real diabolic force.» — lee el Edicto de 1682 como un cambio de doctrina legal: su lenguaje daba la magia por creencia perniciosa y no por fuerza diabólica real

«By banishing magicians and their ilk the Edict aimed to protect ‘many ignorant and credulous people who were unwittingly engaged with them’.» — y por eso el destierro de magos se justificaba como protección de la gente ignorante y crédula que trataba con ellos sin saberlo

«The crime of witchcraft was not explicitly mentioned, but the new law eVectively ended the likelihood of further trials under its old deWnition.» — el silencio del texto que le parece decisivo: el crimen de brujería no se menciona, y la ley acabó de hecho con la posibilidad de nuevos procesos bajo su vieja definición

«In a sense this revised intellectual attitude towards magic was a return to that of the early medieval period, before the rise of the witch trials.» — y la lectura larga que propone: esa actitud intelectual revisada era un regreso a la del alto medievo, anterior a los procesos de brujería

«T he European Enlightenment is often portrayed as heralding the victory of reason and rationalism over magic and superstition.» — toma el retrato corriente de la Ilustración como victoria de la razón sobre la magia y la superstición para acotarlo enseguida

«The crimes of witchcraft and conjuration were redeWned as a delusion and a fraud.» — el desplazamiento jurídico que sí acepta: brujería y conjuración quedaron redefinidas como engaño y fraude

«In late-eighteenth-century Germany a Catholic priest named Johann Joseph Gassner (1727–79) attracted considerable fame and criticism for exorcizing thousands of people whose illnesses he believed were demonic.» — contra ese retrato pone al sacerdote católico Johann Joseph Gassner, que a fines del XVIII exorcizó a miles de personas cuyas dolencias tenía por demoníacas

«The controversy he provoked has been described as ‘one of the largest and noisiest arguments of the whole German Enlightenment’.» — y recoge la descripción ajena de la controversia como una de las discusiones más grandes y ruidosas de toda la Ilustración alemana

«d’Argenson wrote a report on the problem addressed to the King in which he explained how the fortune-tellers and magicians who plagued the capital were a serious threat to public order.» — el informe que d'Argenson dirigió al rey, donde los adivinos y magos que plagaban la capital figuraban como amenaza seria al orden público

«Between 1700 and 1760 at least 300 such people were either prosecuted or reported to the Paris police.» — y la cifra con que mide esa presencia: entre 1700 y 1760 al menos 300 personas fueron procesadas o denunciadas ante la policía de París

«From the records the Clavicule of Solomon emerges as the most inXuential grimoire amongst the Parisian mages.» — de las actas policiales sale su jerarquía de uso: la Clavícula de Salomón fue el grimorio más influyente entre los magos parisinos

«Whether it had grown in popularity since the AVair of the Poisons, or the police were just more detailed in their examination of the magic books they conWscated is diYcult to say.» — y se abstiene de explicar por qué aparece más: no puede decidir si creció su popularidad tras el Asunto de los Venenos o si la policía se volvió más minuciosa al examinar lo confiscado

«The police also conWscated a grimoire entitled ‘les vertus admirables des Psaumes de David’, which its owner, a magical healer named Radeville living in le faubourg de St Denis, was intending to consecrate to the spirit Marcas.» — el tipo de material que la policía se llevaba, hasta un grimorio de las virtudes admirables de los Salmos de David que su dueño pensaba consagrar a un espíritu

«One presumes that it was, in part, this that led him to write, shortly before his death, a humorous critique of the belief in witchcraft, magic, divination, and apparitions based around the opinions and adventures of Monsieur OuXe—OuXe being Le Fou (‘the fool’) spelt backwards.» — atribuye a Bordelon una crítica humorística de la creencia en brujería, magia, adivinación y apariciones, escrita poco antes de su muerte y armada sobre las aventuras de un personaje

«By including both genres in OuXe’s library Bordelon was making the point that they were essentially the same in the sense that they were founded on credulity and fanned pernicious superstition.» — porque al meter los dos géneros en el mismo estante Bordelon sostenía que eran lo mismo, fundados en credulidad y atizadores de superstición

«Despite such mockery and the vigilance of the Paris police, France was set to become the European centre of grimoire production, with global cultural consequences.» — su tesis editorial para el siglo siguiente: pese a la burla ilustrada y a la vigilancia policial, Francia iba a volverse el centro europeo de producción de grimorios, con consecuencias culturales globales

«It was during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that the cheap, simple literary format known as the Bibliothe`que bleue expanded in France.» — data a fines del XVII y comienzos del XVIII la expansión del formato barato y sencillo que lo hizo posible

«For a fraction of the price the wealth of practical occult knowledge contained in the manuscripts so treasured by the Parisian magicians became available to all but the poorest in society.» — y mide el efecto: por una fracción del precio, el saber oculto práctico de los manuscritos que atesoraban los magos parisinos quedó al alcance de casi todos menos los más pobres

«It is not surprising, then, that the publishers of grimoires were loath to identify themselves.» — de la persecución deriva una consecuencia bibliográfica que recorre el resto del libro: los editores de grimorios evitaban identificarse

«A favourite ruse was to hide behind the Wctional publishing company of Beringos Fratres of Lyon, whose premises were located ‘at the sign of Agrippa’.» — la treta preferida era una empresa editorial ficticia de Lyon, con domicilio en la enseña de Agripa

«Most grimoires were given bogus dates of publication and spurious places of publication like Rome or Memphis.» — y la mayoría de los grimorios llevaba fechas falsas y pies de imprenta espurios como Roma o Menfis

«The author of the Grimoire du Pape Honorius clearly saw a gap in the market.» — lee el Grimoire du Pape Honorius como operación de mercado: su autor vio un hueco y lo llenó

«The Petit Albert contained some discussion on the location of buried treasures, and the salamanders, gnomes, and spirits said to guard them, but little practical advice.» — y acota lo que el Petit Albert entrega sobre tesoros, que es poco consejo práctico junto a salamandras, gnomos y espíritus guardianes

«The Grand grimoire provided all the instructions, conjurations, and advice required to seal the pact.» — el Grand grimoire, en cambio, traía todo lo necesario para sellar el pacto, instrucciones, conjuraciones y advertencias

«The Grand grimoire was not only a manual for diabolic communication; the mere possession of it came to be seen as an act of pact-making.» — de donde el desplazamiento que consigna: no solo era manual de trato con el diablo, la sola posesión pasó a verse como acto de pacto

«Several clergymen writing in the 1790s claimed the Revolution was a diabolic Freemason conspiracy.» — recoge la acusación de varios clérigos que en la década de 1790 daban la Revolución por conspiración masónica y diabólica

«But while magic certainly remained as strong a force in popular culture as it had done in the years before and after the revolutionary period, for the vast majority of Frenchmen and women the Church also maintained its grip on the masses.» — y no la suscribe: sostiene que la magia siguió tan fuerte como antes y después del periodo revolucionario, y que a la vez la Iglesia conservó su influencia sobre la enorme mayoría de franceses

«Writing in the mid-nineteenth century, the historian Charles Nisard described its ‘monstrous’ and ‘bizarre’ Wgures as ‘breathing an atmosphere Wlled with Wre, sulphur and bitumen’.» — el juicio del historiador Charles Nisard a mediados del XIX sobre las figuras del libro, monstruosas y bizarras

«One commentator, writing in 1861, noted sadly that it was on open sale in the shop windows of Paris, ‘to the great scandal of those who think we are progressing’.» — y el lamento de un comentarista de 1861 ante la venta abierta en los escaparates de París, escándalo para quienes creían que se progresaba

«In October 1823, the year that a very successful edition of the Dragon rouge was produced in Nıˆmes, a religious periodical published in its ‘case of conscience’ section a letter that had recently been received by a Parisian bookseller» — data en octubre de 1823, el año de una edición muy exitosa hecha en Nîmes, la carta que un periódico religioso publicó en su sección de casos de conciencia

«There is no doubt that the ritual was practised, as was revealed during the trial in 1775 of a winegrower named Jean Guillery and several accomplices.» — declara fuera de duda que el ritual se practicaba, y lo ancla en el proceso de 1775 contra un viticultor y varios cómplices

«Who else purchased the thousands of grimoires being produced? We cannot assume that it was only the literate.» — se niega a suponer que los miles de grimorios producidos los compraran solo lectores alfabetizados

«As to the practitioners, we should not presume that they were all interested in conjurations and spells, as most Bibliothe`que bleue grimoires also contained simple, pious healing charms and natural recipes.» — y tampoco da por hecho que todos los practicantes buscaran conjuros: la mayoría de esos grimorios traía también ensalmos piadosos y recetas naturales

«In August 1776 Duthil was branded and sent to the galleys for life.» — el castigo que cerró el caso del estafador Duthil en agosto de 1776, marcado a fuego y enviado a galeras de por vida

«The folklore and trial records of the nineteenth century show how Wrmly cemented the Bibliothe`que bleue grimoires had become in the fabric of France’s tradition of popular magic.» — lo que folclore y actas judiciales del XIX le muestran: los grimorios de librillo azul ya estaban firmemente cimentados en la tradición mágica popular francesa

«But the Index was a fairly redundant tool of censorship by now.» — y el estado de la censura para entonces, con el Índice convertido en herramienta bastante inútil

«In 1854 it was estimated that in the Ardennes region alone as many as 400,000 chapbook grimoires were in circulation—surely an exaggeration, but nevertheless indicative of how much they had infused into the popular consciousness.» — la cifra de 1854 que cita y que a la vez desconfía: 400 000 grimorios de cordel circulando solo en las Ardenas, exageración segura pero indicio de cuánto habían calado

«France may have been the centre of European grimoire printing, but for many southern European Catholics during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Geneva was the capital of diabolic magic, joining Salamanca and Toledo in the Enlightenment and Treasure | 109» — la geografía mental que rescata de los católicos del sur de Europa: Francia era el centro de la imprenta de grimorios, pero la capital de la magia diabólica era Ginebra, junto a Satanás

«The city was a major centre of publishing, but its occult reputation was due primarily to it being a centre of Protestantism, the heartland of Calvinism.» — y adjudica esa fama menos a la industria editorial ginebrina que a su condición de corazón del calvinismo

«One of those making a living from selling grimoires in the famed market in the Place du Molard was Louise Chartier, wife of a printer named Odet Jacques.» — quiénes vendían grimorios en el mercado de la Place du Molard, entre ellas la esposa de un impresor

«In 1716 the authorities conWscated two manuscripts entitled, ‘Sanctum Regnum seu Pneumatologia Salomonis, with some other loose leaves from the same book, which explain the nature of the Devil, his Wgure, his diVerent names, his power, the number of his oYcers’.» — lo confiscado por las autoridades en 1716, un Sanctum Regnum salomónico con hojas sueltas del mismo libro sobre la naturaleza y la figura del diablo

«Several decades later, copies of the Clavicula Salomonis were being produced by a group of conspirators made up of an innkeeper named Charles Empeyta, a bookseller Pierre Lombard, a school master Jacques Dueros, and Jacques Minot, an artist.» — y el reparto de oficios entre quienes producían copias de la Clavicula Salomonis décadas después: un posadero, un librero y un maestro de escuela

«By this time the Grand grimoire had joined the Petit Albert as a publishing sensation.» — data en ese momento la conversión del Grand grimoire en éxito de venta a la par del Petit Albert

«References in the trial records regarding its blue paper cover conWrm its identity as a member of the Bibliothe`que bleue.» — y la prueba material con que lo adscribe a la Bibliothèque bleue, las menciones a su cubierta de papel azul en las actas

«Carret soon regretted his decision after a friend opened the book and declared that it contained nothing more than a lot of ‘twaddle’.» — el desenlace del comprador que pagó una fortuna por uno, arrepentido cuando un amigo lo abrió y dictaminó que no contenía más que sandeces

«‘Having examined the print and characters of the said book,’ he concluded, ‘I have found nothing which makes me believe that this book might have been printed in Geneva, and I think I can state to the contrary, that it is impossible to determine in what place the said book was printed.’» — el peritaje tipográfico que consigna, donde el examinador niega que el libro se imprimiera en Ginebra pese al pie de imprenta

«An inspection conWrms that, although bearing the bogus date of 1603, it was a copy of the French edition published around 1750.» — y su propia comprobación bibliográfica: con fecha falsa de 1603, el ejemplar es de la edición francesa de hacia 1750

«Agilar set about searching Wrst for a copy of the Virtutes Herbarum by Albertus Magnus, in other words the Grand Albert, from which he wanted to learn the magical properties of herbs and stones.» — lo primero que buscó un cazador de tesoros español fue el Virtutes Herbarum de Alberto Magno, es decir el Grand Albert, por las propiedades mágicas de hierbas y piedras

«Yet, despite the attentions of Church and state, grimoires continued to circulate throughout the Iberian Peninsula.» — su conclusión sobre la eficacia de la censura ibérica: pese a la atención de Iglesia y Estado, los grimorios siguieron circulando por toda la península

«In the eighteenth century Bayonne in particular had a reputation amongst Spaniards as a centre of magical practice second only to Geneva.» — y la jerarquía de plazas mágicas que corría entre españoles del XVIII, con Bayona segunda solo después de Ginebra

«We know such a grimoire really existed in the region for we Wnd a copy of Agrippa le Noir among the books and manuscripts conWscated from Dominique Lalanne.» — el criterio con que da por real un grimorio de tradición oral: existe porque hay un ejemplar de Agrippa le Noir entre los libros confiscados a un procesado

«The court, however, ordered that a translation of the grimoire be made so that they could better judge its contents, and this copy survives in the archives.» — el tribunal mandó traducir el grimorio para juzgar su contenido, y esa copia sobrevive en el archivo

«This does not mean that all Agrippa le Noirs were the same or similar to Detcheverry’s, but it represents a distinct regional tradition that crossed linguistic and political frontiers.» — acota enseguida lo que ese ejemplar prueba: no que todos los Agrippa le Noir fueran iguales, sino que había una tradición regional que cruzaba fronteras lingüísticas y políticas

«Some editions claimed that a German monk named Jonas Sufurino, the librarian of the monastery of Brooken, discovered or wrote it in the year 1000.» — la atribución que algunas ediciones del Libro de San Cipriano se dieron a sí mismas, un monje alemán bibliotecario que lo habría hallado o escrito en el año 1000

«Popular legend had it that the original manuscript was safely locked away in the university or cathedral library in the Galician capital Santiago.» — y la leyenda que ponía el manuscrito original bajo llave en la universidad o la catedral de Santiago

«Although modern editions claimed an initial publication date of 1510, there is, in fact, no mention in Spanish sources of a grimoire with such a title until 1802, when the Inquisition prosecuted a priest for possessing a manuscript called the Libro de San Cipriano, which he used to Wnd buried treasure.» — contra las dos, su datación de archivo: las ediciones modernas dicen 1510, pero las fuentes españolas no mencionan un grimorio con ese título hasta 1802

«The papal Index, however, had long included ‘prayers ascribed to S. Cipriano’ against evil spirits, incantations, witchcraft, and any other adversity.» — lo que sí estaba desde antes en el Índice papal eran las oraciones adjudicadas a san Cipriano contra malos espíritus, encantamientos y brujería

«I have not been able to trace any surviving copies of the Cyprien Mago ante Conversionem.» — declara en primera persona no haber podido rastrear ningún ejemplar superviviente del Cyprien Mago ante Conversionem

«It was almost certainly a local Bibliothe`que bleue publication, and conWrms that a Cyprian treasure grimoire had been printed and circulated in southwest France before it had in Spain.» — y aun así lo data y lo sitúa: casi con seguridad una publicación local de librillo azul, prueba de que un grimorio cipriánico de tesoros se imprimió y circuló en el suroeste de Francia antes que en España

«Yet it is quite possible that the Cyprien Mago was an example of the Xow of magical culture from Spain to France with a French printer being inspired by a manuscript Libro de San Cipriano.» — sin cerrar la dirección del préstamo, deja abierta la contraria, que un impresor francés se inspirara en un Libro de San Cipriano manuscrito venido de España

«The publication of Spanish books with the title Libro de San Cipriano only began in the late nineteenth century.» — data a fines del siglo XIX el comienzo de la publicación de libros españoles con ese título

«One version of the Libro de San Cipriano was essentially a translation of the French Grand grimoire.» — y separa los dos géneros que corren bajo el mismo nombre: uno era en lo esencial una traducción del Grand grimoire francés

«The second genre of the Libro de San Cipriano was a distinctively Spanish creation rather than a comprehensive borrowing from the French tradition.» — el otro, una creación distintivamente española y no un préstamo del corpus francés

«The key to the success of this Libro de San Cipriano was that it also provided a detailed list of the places in Galicia where treasure could be found.» — adjudica el éxito de esa segunda rama a un contenido muy concreto, la lista detallada de los lugares de Galicia donde había tesoro

«Around 1850 an enterprising Galician publisher produced a cheap, poorly printed hoax gaceta entitled the Millonario de San Ciprian, which purported to contain a list of the hidden Roman and Moorish treasures secreted in the neighbourhood of the city of Corun˜a.» — data hacia 1850 la gaceta fraudulenta que un editor gallego sacó con la lista de tesoros romanos y moros supuestamente escondidos

«The surname spelt backwards is the rude Spanish exclamation ‘Carajo!’» — y señala la broma que delata el fraude, el apellido del supuesto autor leído al revés

«There is no evidence that Goethe ever dabbled in the magical arts, though, and so his enthusiasm for collecting grimoires was probably born more of inquisitiveness and bibliomania than any practical interest in their contents.» — se abstiene de hacer mago a Goethe: no hay evidencia de que practicara las artes mágicas, y su afán por coleccionar grimorios nació más de la curiosidad y la bibliomanía

«This was possibly the Wrst printed version of the grimoire, though disappointingly, as Adelung explained, it had to be stripped of the original manuscript’s magical signs and sigils in order to reduce the cost of publication.» — data en el volumen de Adelung la que posiblemente sea la primera versión impresa del Höllenzwang fáustico, y anota lo que la impresión le quitó, los signos y sigilos del manuscrito, para abaratarla

«Adelung published it for the same reasons that Reginald Scot published charms and conjurations—to expose the folly of believing in them.» — y adjudica a Adelung el mismo motivo que a Reginald Scot, publicar la conjuración para exhibir la necedad de creer en ella

«The attribution of many of the eighteenth-century grimoires to Faust is perfectly understandable considering the huge popularity of chapbook accounts of his life.» — explica por qué tantos grimorios del XVIII se atribuyeron a Fausto, por la enorme popularidad de los relatos de cordel sobre su vida

«Ebert considered it to be ‘from beginning to end the merest nonsense’.» — el juicio del bibliotecario Ebert sobre uno de esos manuscritos, disparate de cabo a rabo

«Until the middle of the century treasure seeking remained a capital crime in some German Catholic states, and a mandate against it was issued in the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg as late as 1776.» — la vigencia penal que documenta: buscar tesoros siguió siendo delito capital en algunos estados católicos alemanes, con un mandato en el principado episcopal de Bamberg tan tarde como 1776

«In 1773, in the southwestern town of Gu¨nzburg, for instance, the ringleader of a group of treasure seekers was punished by having to kneel in the marketplace with his magical manuscripts.» — y la pena de exposición pública que en 1773 se impuso al cabecilla de unos buscadores, arrodillado en la plaza del mercado con sus manuscritos mágicos

«It was described by the English scholar of German magical literature, Eliza Butler, as ‘an interminable, hysterical and maddeningly repetitive series of prayers and conjurations which could I think only have emanated from a German brain’.» — recoge el veredicto de la estudiosa Eliza Butler sobre esa literatura, serie interminable, histérica y enloquecedoramente repetitiva de oraciones y conjuros

«The Jesuits were expelled from Austria in 1773 following a papal decree, and it is likely that the concept of the Jesuit grimoire, containing the hidden knowledge of a forbidden society, developed there afterwards.» — propone un origen fechado para el grimorio jesuita: los jesuitas fueron expulsados de Austria en 1773 y la idea del libro con el saber oculto de una sociedad prohibida se habría formado allí después

«According to one legend recorded in the town of Chemnitz, Saxony, in the 1840s, the original Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses were kept at Wittenberg.» — la leyenda recogida en Chemnitz en la década de 1840, que guardaba los Sexto y Séptimo Libros de Moisés originales en Wittenberg

«Reger made German translations to sell on, though he admitted that he could not understand everything he read in the manuscripts gathered by Reuther and so omitted such passages in the copies he made.» — el defecto de transmisión que documenta en un copista: Reger vendía traducciones alemanas y admitió que no entendía todo lo que leía, así que omitía esos pasajes en sus copias

«Even more popular was a similar compilation of ‘gypsy’ magic called the Romanusbu¨chlein, the Wrst known edition of which appeared in Silesia in 1788, though Venice was given as the place» — data la primera edición conocida del Romanusbüchlein en Silesia en 1788, con Venecia puesta como lugar de impresión

«Ironically, the biggest boost to the democratization of German grimoires did not come from abroad or from illicit publishers, though, but from scholarly exercises in historical inquiry.» — su ironía central sobre Alemania: el mayor empuje a la democratización de los grimorios no vino del extranjero ni de editores clandestinos, sino de ejercicios eruditos de investigación histórica

«There is nothing to suggest he had any occult interests.» — y su búsqueda negativa sobre el hombre que lo produjo, sin nada que sugiera interés ocultista

«So it remains a complete mystery as to why, between 1845 and 1849, he included some forty grimoires in a twelve-volume collection of old ‘miraculous and curious’ German literature, Das Kloster.» — de ahí que declare un misterio completo por qué entre 1845 y 1849 metió unos cuarenta grimorios en su colección de literatura alemana antigua

«They had a reputation for knowing a thing or two about magic and medicine, born partly of their possession of grimoires and almanacs, partly because of the mystique that accrued to them as strangers from unknown lands.» — y la razón por la que los buhoneros no eran meros vendedores: se les suponía saber algo de magia y de medicina, en parte por llevar grimorios y almanaques, en parte por el misterio de venir de tierras desconocidas

«It would seem, however, that Scheible was the Wrst to print a full version.» — su adjudicación de primicia impresa para los Sexto y Séptimo Libros de Moisés, que atribuye a Scheible

«This may seem a pedantic point, but it is a signiWcant detail considering that Scheible’s edition would be copied by others and go on to have a global cultural impact comparable to the Petit Albert.» — y por qué insiste en el detalle: la edición de Scheible sería copiada por otros y tendría un impacto cultural global comparable al del Petit Albert

«It has been estimated that over a hundred black books survive in Norwegian libraries and museums alone, most dating to the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.» — la cifra de supervivencia que maneja para los libros negros escandinavos, más de cien solo en bibliotecas y museos noruegos, la mayoría de fines del XVIII y del XIX

«This Wgure is by no means representative of the number that must have been produced, and so for Scandinavia as a whole it is not unlikely that several thousand manuscripts circulated during the period.» — y su advertencia de que esa cifra no representa lo producido: para Escandinavia entera calcula varios miles de manuscritos en circulación

«Despite sharing the same name the content of the Scandinavian black books are surprisingly diverse, a consequence perhaps of the limited print tradition during the eighteenth century.» — el hallazgo que le sorprende: pese al nombre común, el contenido de los libros negros es diverso, quizá por lo escasa que fue allí la tradición impresa

«A series of trials were held in Denmark in the 1720s involving soldiers who had made such written pacts with the Devil.» — los procesos daneses de la década de 1720 contra soldados que habían firmado pactos con el diablo

«Likewise in Sweden at least twenty-nine people were tried for the same crime between 1680 and 1789.» — y la cifra sueca por el mismo delito, al menos veintinueve procesados entre 1680 y 1789

«Whatever the path of inXuence, the pre-eminence of the title in Danish magical tradition was certainly sealed by the publication in the 1770s of the Wrst printed Scandinavian black book—more of which a little later.» — sea cual sea la vía de influencia, data en la década de 1770 lo que selló la preeminencia del nombre de Cipriano, la publicación del primer libro negro escandinavo impreso

«Because there was no chapbook grimoire revolution in Scandinavia, ownership during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was restricted largely to the educated middling sort, namely civil servants, teachers, clergy, and soldiers.» — y explica la sociología de esa posesión por la ausencia de revolución de librillos: los dueños fueron sobre todo funcionarios y gente educada de en medio, no el común

«There was no mention in the police archives that he had ever attempted a Devil’s pact.» — una búsqueda negativa sobre el duque de Luxemburgo: los archivos policiales no mencionan que intentara nunca un pacto diabólico

«By far the most widespread belief was that the black books came from Wittenberg, where folklore had it that the Scandinavian clergy trained in a school for the black arts.» — la creencia más extendida sobre el origen de los libros negros los hacía venir de Wittenberg, donde el folclore situaba una escuela de artes negras para el clero escandinavo

«Indeed, a Danish Church Ordinance of 1627 requiring all prospective Lutheran ministers to obtain a university degree meant that some Norwegian clergymen did attend the University of Wittenberg, as well as that in Copenhagen and the north German town of Rostock.» — y el dato institucional que le da pie: una ordenanza eclesiástica danesa de 1627 exigía título universitario a los futuros ministros luteranos, y algunos clérigos noruegos sí estudiaron en Wittenberg

«The advent of print grimoires did little to undermine the Wittenberg tradition.» — sostiene que la llegada del grimorio impreso no debilitó la leyenda de Wittenberg

«There is no doubting the signiWcant impact the Sybrianus P.P.P. had on the Danish manuscript tradition.» — y da por indudable el impacto del Sybrianus P.P.P. en la tradición manuscrita danesa

«It was only during the second half of the nineteenth century that similar cheap grimoires were printed in Sweden.» — data en la segunda mitad del XIX la aparición de grimorios baratos semejantes en Suecia

«The importance of print is a surprising recurring motif in the Scandinavian black book tradition.» — el motivo que le resulta inesperado en la tradición del libro negro escandinavo, la importancia atribuida a lo impreso

«It would seem that in Scandinavia, though, print was a seal of authority and occult legitimacy.» — porque allí la imprenta funcionaba al revés que en Francia: era sello de autoridad y de legitimidad oculta, no vulgarización

«Yet a chapbook grimoire revolution never happened.» — y aun así la revolución del grimorio de cordel nunca ocurrió en Escandinavia

«This is remarkable considering that, in the period, English and Scottish publishers produced huge numbers of chapbooks on astrology and divination.» — cosa que le parece notable si se mira lo que en el mismo periodo produjeron los editores ingleses y escoceses en astrología y adivinación

«Sibly was no spirit conjurer, though, and condemned such attempts as wicked black magic.» — deslinda la posición de Sibly: no era conjurador de espíritus y condenaba esos intentos como magia negra

«It was, however, still little more than a compilation of material quite skilfully culled from a range of books borrowed from John Denley.» — y rebaja el Magus de Barrett a poco más que una compilación, hábil pero compilación, de material tomado de los libros que le prestaba John Denley

«There is no evidence to suggest that it disseminated widely enough to have made an impact on popular tradition.» — su búsqueda negativa sobre el alcance de esa obra, sin evidencia de que se difundiera lo bastante para dejar huella en la tradición popular

«Barrett, described in one newspaper report as ‘a miniature-painter, and an amateur of chemistry’, was better known in his lifetime for his failed ballooning exploits than his knowledge of magic.» — y el retrato de Barrett que da la prensa de su tiempo, pintor de miniaturas y aficionado a la química, más conocido por sus fracasos en globo que por su magia

«Sibly moved to London at a time when, as the historian E. P. Thompson put it, the capital was experiencing an ‘explosion of anti-rationalism’.» — sitúa la llegada de Sibly a Londres en lo que el historiador E. P. Thompson llamó una explosión de antirracionalismo en la capital

«In the long term, though, The Magus would become a major inXuence on the middle-class occult revival of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.» — adjudica al Magus, a largo plazo, una influencia mayor sobre el renacimiento ocultista de clase media de fines del XIX y del XX

«He was a sophisticated exploiter of print, producing puVs advertising his magical powers, talismans, and handwritten copies of his own grimoire, The Grand Oracle of Heaven, or, The Art of Divine Magic.» — el retrato de John Parkins como explotador sofisticado de la imprenta, con anuncios de sus poderes, talismanes y copias manuscritas de su propio grimorio

«Yet he never moved into the chapbook grimoire market, even though he worked with chapbook publishers.» — y el hueco que él mismo dejó: nunca entró al mercado del grimorio de cordel, aunque trabajaba con editores de ese ramo

«British chapbook publishers evidently practised a degree of self-censorship, particularly during the period of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, during which the British government kept a close eye on the printers.» — adjudica a los editores británicos de librillos una autocensura evidente, sobre todo durante el periodo revolucionario y napoleónico, con el gobierno vigilando la prensa

«Any magical content darker than that was out of bounds, even if it was prefaced with disingenuous provisos that such information was published as an illustration of the superstitions of the past.» — y fija dónde ponían el corte: cualquier contenido mágico más oscuro quedaba fuera, aunque se prologara con la excusa de ilustrar las supersticiones del pasado

«It purported to be a translation of a magical manuscript owned by Napoleon, but was in fact a mish-mash of material culled from Barrett’s The Magus.» — el fraude de atribución de The Philosophical Merlin, que se anunciaba como traducción de un manuscrito mágico de Napoleón y era un revoltijo sacado del Magus de Barrett

«It folded after only twenty-two issues, but in 1825 it was repackaged as a book entitled The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century, claiming bogusly to be in its seventh edition.» — el semanario que lo siguió duró veintidós números y en 1825 se reempaquetó como libro declarando falsamente una séptima edición

«Smith claimed some of these conjurations and talismans were culled from ancient manuscripts in the possession of the Mercurii, a secret magic society of which he was a member—perhaps the only one.» — y la fuente que Smith se inventó para sus conjuros, manuscritos antiguos de una sociedad mágica secreta de la que quizá era el único miembro

«Caution on behalf of the chapbook publishers and over-ambition on the part of occultists seems to have ensured that there was no grimoire revolution in Britain, and consequently British print culture had a limited inXuence on the magical traditions of its colonies around the world.» — de ahí su explicación de por qué Gran Bretaña no tuvo revolución de grimorios: cautela de los editores y ambición desmedida de los ocultistas, con un impacto colonial escaso

«Only Sibly had some impact in India where there was a venerable and inXuential astrological culture receptive to his English language opus.» — la única excepción que concede es Sibly en la India, donde una cultura astrológica venerable estaba dispuesta a recibir su obra en inglés

«The British by no means held a monopoly on Colonial American occult literature during the early eighteenth century.» — corrige la idea de un monopolio británico sobre la literatura oculta de la América colonial de comienzos del XVIII

«Fortune-telling and a bit of love magic were all that was considered acceptable.» — en el mercado británico solo pasaban la buenaventura y algo de magia amorosa

«That admirable eighteenth-century urban institution, the subscription library, also provided access to magical knowledge for those who had a few shillings to spare annually and the time to peruse their holdings.» — la vía de acceso al saber mágico que rescata para la América del XVIII, la biblioteca por suscripción, al alcance de quien tuviera unos chelines al año y tiempo para hojear

«This must have constituted the largest public resource on practical magic in the country at the time.» — y su cálculo de que ese fondo debió ser el mayor recurso público sobre magia práctica del país en su momento

«While admission to these libraries, whether private or public, was restricted to a very small percentage of the population, they confirm that America had its own palaces of occult enlightenment.» — de donde su conclusión: aunque el ingreso a esas bibliotecas estaba restringido a un porcentaje mínimo de la población, confirman que América tuvo sus propios palacios de ilustración oculta

«It is not unlikely, furthermore, that these repositories generated manuscript grimoires produced by copyists who did have access.» — y la hipótesis que marca como tal, que esos depósitos generaran grimorios manuscritos copiados por quienes sí tenían acceso

«The mock formula was as big a success as the earnest astrological almanac, selling up to 10,000 copies annually during the quarter century of its existence.» — la cifra del almanaque burlesco de Franklin, hasta 10 000 ejemplares anuales durante el cuarto de siglo que duró, tanto como el almanaque astrológico serio

«Years later, Franklin’s spoof would be the first American ‘occult’ publication to make a significant impression back across the Atlantic.» — y lo que esa broma llegó a ser: la primera publicación oculta estadounidense en dejar impresión al otro lado del Atlántico

«In each case the popular fascination with grimoires was used to lure people into reading a determinedly rationalist message.» — el mecanismo que le interesa en ambos casos, la fascinación popular por los grimorios usada de cebo para hacer leer un mensaje decididamente racionalista

«It was not until after the War of Independence that American publishers began to pump out the wide range of chapbooks available on the Continent.» — data después de la Guerra de Independencia el momento en que los editores estadounidenses empezaron a sacar la gama de librillos que ya corría en el continente

«The popularity of such literature was boosted further by the huge growth of legal and illicit lotteries—the urban treasure trove of the nineteenth century.» — y suma el empuje de las loterías legales e ilegales, que llama el tesoro urbano del siglo XIX

«There is certainly little evidence that any of the educated elite with their large libraries actually practised spirit conjurations and the like; their occult interests were mostly philosophical, astrological, or alchemical.» — su búsqueda negativa sobre la elite ilustrada: hay poca evidencia de que quienes tenían grandes bibliotecas practicaran de veras la conjuración de espíritus, y sus intereses ocultos eran sobre todo filosóficos y astrológicos

«By the early nineteenth century, however, the Germantown mystics were characterized as practical magicians in reminiscence and folklore.» — pero registra que hacia comienzos del XIX el recuerdo y el folclore ya habían convertido a los místicos de Germantown en magos prácticos

«A history of Pennsylvania written in 1829 suggested that although Witt’s medical practice flourished, the ‘superstition of his neighbours, probably rendered his profession of necromancy the more lucrative.’» — y cita la historia de Pensilvania de 1829, que adjudicaba el buen negocio de Witt menos a su medicina que a la superstición de sus vecinos

«The Disappointment is generally thought to have been written by Colonel Thomas Forrest (1747–1825), a Philadelphian congressman who in his roustabout youth pulled off a very similar prank to that recounted in the opera.» — adjudica con reserva la autoría de The Disappointment a un congresista de Filadelfia que en su juventud había hecho una broma parecida a la que el libro cuenta

«American treasure seekers seem to have relied mostly on the Bible and the psalms rather than magical conjurations, though there are examples of magic circles being employed.» — su hallazgo negativo sobre la magia de tesoros estadounidense: los buscadores se apoyaron sobre todo en la Biblia y los salmos, no en conjuraciones, aunque hay ejemplos de círculos mágicos

«During the 1970s and early 1980s, however, Mormon and non-Mormon scholars began an earnest reappraisal of the occult activities of Smith and his early followers.» — data en los años setenta y comienzos de los ochenta la reevaluación seria de las actividades ocultas de Joseph Smith y sus primeros seguidores, hecha por estudiosos mormones y no mormones

«When suspicion was aroused about the authenticity of the letter and other Mormon artefacts Hofmann had sold to the Church, he tried to cover his tracks by setting two bombs for people he had dealt with, killing two.» — y el fraude documental que atravesó ese debate: cuando se sospechó de la autenticidad de la carta y de otras piezas mormonas que había vendido a la Iglesia, el tratante puso dos bombas contra personas con las que había tratado

«Quinn argued that the content of the Book of Mormon, whether written by Smith or divinely translated by him, was influenced by the literary tradition of early modern and eighteenth-century hermeticism, Kabbalah, and mysticism.» — la tesis de Quinn que resume: el contenido del Libro de Mormón, escrito o traducido por Smith, estaba influido por la tradición literaria del hermetismo, la cábala y la magia modernos

«Quinn rightly suggested that several of the symbols they contained were taken variously from Scot’s Discoverie (1584), the ‘discourse’ attached to the 1665 edition of Discoverie, or extracts reprinted in Sibly’s New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences.» — le concede a Quinn la parte documental, que los símbolos de los pergaminos vienen del Discoverie de Scot de 1584, del discurso añadido en 1665 o de extractos reimpresos

«Quinn’s reconstruction of the popular magical beliefs of the social milieu in which the Smiths and their followers lived is convincing, and is supported by the work of other historians of eighteenth-century American religious cultures.» — y también la reconstrucción del medio mágico en que vivían los Smith, que juzga convincente y sostenida por otros historiadores

«While there is no evidence that the Smiths owned copies of Scot, Sibly, or Barrett, there is little doubt that the Smith parchments were used for overtly magical protective purposes, and were derived primarily from Scot and Sibly.» — pero fija el límite de la evidencia: no hay prueba de que los Smith poseyeran a Scot, Sibly o Barrett, aunque los pergaminos sí sirvieran a fines protectores abiertamente mágicos

«Yet Quinn’s conviction, that the Smiths were practitioners of traditional magic was outrageous, even heretical, to the hierarchy of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.» — consigna sin armonizar la reacción de la jerarquía de los Santos de los Últimos Días, para quienes la convicción de Quinn era ultrajante y hasta herética

«Quinn certainly conflated cheap and easily available fortune-telling tracts and astrological works with grimoires and other scarce works of intellectual magic.» — y su propia objeción a Quinn, que confundió los folletos baratos de buenaventura y astrología con los grimorios y las obras escasas de magia intelectual

«I am also inclined to agree with Hamblin that it is highly unlikely that the Smiths owned a copy of or had access to Barrett’s The Magus.» — declara en primera persona su acuerdo con Hamblin en que es muy improbable que los Smith tuvieran o alcanzaran un ejemplar del Magus de Barrett

«When it comes to the sources for what Quinn asserted were Smith’s ritual knife for making a magic circle, Hamblin overplays the scarcity of Scot’s Discovery as a possible source.» — y su objeción a Hamblin en el mismo párrafo, que exagera la escasez del Discoverie de Scot como fuente posible

«Hamblin’s belief that Scot’s Discoverie was not used as a book of magic—‘it is not a book designed to help someone learn how to be a magician’—is also contradicted by the English evidence.» — opone la evidencia inglesa a la tesis de Hamblin de que el Discoverie de Scot no se usaba como libro de magia

«Quinn’s thesis does not stand or fall on the basis that Smith owned copies of Scot and Sibly, since extracts from all three were to be found in the manuscript grimoires and charms kept by some English cunning-folk, and in those sold by the London occult bookseller John Denley.» — y salva la tesis de Quinn de su punto más débil: no depende de que Smith poseyera a Scot y a Sibly, porque extractos de los tres corrían en los grimorios manuscritos de los cunning-folk ingleses

«It is not surprising that the Mormon faith was, in part, born out of the magical milieu of the period.» — de ahí que no le extrañe que la fe mormona naciera en parte del medio mágico de la época

«Whether Protestant or Catholic, German or British, magic was a central aspect of most people’s conception of Christianity in colonial America.» — su afirmación general sobre la América colonial: fuera protestante o católica, alemana o británica, la magia era parte central de cómo casi todos concebían el cristianismo

«But it was the French grimoire tradition and not the German that had the most substantial influence on Canadian popular magic.» — adjudica al corpus francés y no al alemán la influencia más sustancial sobre la magia popular canadiense

«Yet although at least 27,000 French came to Canada in the period from 1608 until its surrender to the British in 1763, some two-thirds returned to their homes, predominantly in Normandy, Poitou, and the Paris basin.» — y las cifras migratorias con que lo acota: al menos 27 000 franceses llegaron a Canadá entre 1608 y 1763, y unos dos tercios regresaron

«In June 1682 a Montreal innkeeper Anne Lamarque was tried for practising magic principally on the basis of her possession of a mysterious book.» — el proceso de 1682 contra una posadera de Montreal, abierto principalmente por poseer un libro misterioso

«She replied that it was no such thing, it was merely ‘a book of herbs or medicines’.» — y cómo se desinfló, cuando ella respondió que no era tal cosa sino un libro de hierbas o de medicinas

«Despite the potential demand, however, in 1861 it was estimated that no more than twenty-five to thirty copies could be found in the province.» — la cifra de 1861 que mide la presencia real del Petit Albert en Quebec, no más de veinticinco o treinta ejemplares en toda la provincia

«If this was so, then the Petit Albert’s cultural influence far outweighed its actual presence in Quebec society.» — de donde su conclusión sobre esa obra, cuya influencia cultural desbordaba con mucho su presencia material

«While his aim was to destroy the belief in grimoires surely the only reason for the book’s success was that many people bought it under the mistaken assumption that it was an edition of the actual Petit Albert.» — y su lectura del éxito del Véritable Petit-Albert de 1861, comprado por muchos bajo el supuesto equivocado de que era una edición del Petit Albert verdadero, justo lo contrario de lo que su autor quería

«This literary reference is hardly concrete evidence of the grimoire’s use at the time, but the scenario is perfectly reasonable.» — se abstiene de tomar una novela como prueba de uso: la referencia literaria no es evidencia concreta, aunque la escena sea del todo verosímil

«The African elements in Comfa can be identified as Bantu, while the word Obeah derives from the Ashanti.» — las etimologías con que ordena las tradiciones caribeñas, el elemento africano de la Comfa como bantú y el término Obeah como ashanti

«As a series of eighteenth-century Inquisition trials reveal, these protective pouches were a fusion of the African Islamic tradition of the alherces containing passages from the Koran, the European tradition of wearing printed or written prayers mingled with occult symbols, and indigenous amulets.» — y la fusión que los procesos inquisitoriales del XVIII le muestran en las bolsas mandinga brasileñas, entre la tradición islámica africana de los alherces y la europea

«This concept, however, does not entirely square with religious developments in the Caribbean.» — objeta la noción de aculturación como explicación de lo ocurrido en el Caribe, porque no cuadra del todo con lo que allí pasó con la religión

«The term creolization—creole referring to persons born in the region who have non-native ancestry—encapsulates better this complex creative process, which was beyond authoritarian control.» — y propone en su lugar la criollización, que a su juicio capta mejor un proceso creativo complejo y fuera del control de la autoridad

«The creolization of religion and magic may have been forged out of cultural repression and violence, but its development was one of continuing cultural negotiation, fusion, and adaptation.» — sin suavizar el origen: esa criollización se forjó en la represión cultural y la violencia, y aun así se desarrolló como negociación, fusión y adaptación continuas

«Within a few years they had been translated into Spanish and quickly became hugely influential in Latin America—more so than in Europe.» — el dato de recepción que anota para el kardecismo, traducido pronto al español y más influyente en América Latina que en la propia Europa

«This is no legend, but a real money-making activity for the guardians, who have on at least one occasion been charged with adding names to the book to extort money.» — declara real y no legendario el negocio del libro de brujas de los salasacas, con guardianes acusados al menos una vez de añadir nombres para extorsionar

«The witch book is no mock grimoire with occult signs and pictures of the Devil; it is a functional large notebook consisting of lined paper, not unlike those used for Civil Registry and Church record keeping.» — y describe el objeto contra la imagen corriente del grimorio: no lleva signos ocultos ni figuras del diablo, es un cuaderno grande de papel rayado como los del registro civil y parroquial

«In other words, the archival function of books, which serve as a means of social control in an administrative sense, can also be used to subjugate through magical means—an echo of the early modern witch trials and the belief in the Devil’s book.» — de donde la idea que le interesa: la función archivística del libro, control social en lo administrativo, sirve también para subyugar por vía mágica

«The grimoire was not necessarily seen wholly as the white man’s legacy.» — y su corrección a una lectura fácil de la colonia, porque el grimorio no se veía forzosamente como legado del hombre blanco

«Seabrook’s book provided translated excerpts from a Creole grimoire found on the body of the rebel commander Benoit Batraville, who was shot dead by American marines in 1920.» — la procedencia del grimorio criollo que Seabrook tradujo en extractos, hallado en el cuerpo de un comandante rebelde abatido por marines estadounidenses en 1920

«To be more precise, it was the French Bibliothe`que bleue grimoires that first gave the Caribbean its literary magic tradition.» — y su tesis para la región, que fueron los grimorios franceses de librillo azul los que dieron al Caribe su tradición de magia escrita

«It was the Petit Albert that had the most demonstrable influence on magical practices.» — de todo el corpus francés adjudica al Petit Albert la influencia más demostrable sobre las prácticas mágicas caribeñas

«One of America’s early leading sociologists, Ulysses G. Weatherly, wrote in 1923 that the French, in comparison with the English, were more congenial to the simpler nature of the African.» — recoge, sin suscribirla, la tesis del sociólogo Ulysses G. Weatherly, que en 1923 hacía a los franceses más afines que a los ingleses con lo que llamaba la naturaleza más simple del africano

«No surprise then, according to Weatherly’s view, that fragments of the ‘great magic books of the Middle Ages’ passed into Obeah and ‘the dim ghost of Albertus Magnus flits in and out’.» — y el corolario que Weatherly sacaba de ahí, fragmentos de los grandes libros mágicos medievales pasados al Obeah

«He postulated that the French authorities’ policy of education and the promotion of the assimilation of European culture backfired.» — la explicación que Weatherly postulaba para ello, que la política francesa de educación y asimilación había salido al revés

«British visitors to the country back in the 1820s and 1830s had already made snide observations about the inability of the French-trained Catholic clergy to suppress ‘superstition’ and ‘heathenism’.» — documenta que ya en las décadas de 1820 y 1830 los visitantes británicos hacían comentarios socarrones sobre la incapacidad del clero católico formado en Francia para suprimir lo que llamaban superstición

«There was a widespread belief amongst Europeans that human sacrifice and even cannibalism were also practised by adherents of Voodoo in Haiti, and by magical practitioners in other French-speaking colonies.» — consigna como creencia europea, no como hecho, la de que en Haití y otras colonias francófonas se practicaban el sacrificio humano y el canibalismo

«His stridently critical account of the country was reviled by Haitians but widely read in Europe and America.» — sitúa a St John como fuente interesada: su relato durísimo del país fue detestado por los haitianos y leído con amplitud en Europa y América

«When it came to a second edition in 1889 he added further details, stating he had ‘underrated’ the ‘fearful manifestations’ of Voodoo.» — y anota cómo se agravó en la segunda edición de 1889, donde declaró haberse quedado corto

«He dismissed St John’s accounts as unsubstantiated hearsay, highlighting the pernicious influence of local and international newspapers in peddling sensational false accounts, such as the report that human flesh was on sale in Haitian markets.» — frente a eso pone a quien desechó esos relatos como habladurías sin fundamento y señaló el papel de la prensa local e internacional en propagar falsedades sensacionales

«There was no more cannibalism in Haiti than in Jamaica, he concluded.» — y el juicio de Whidden, que no había más canibalismo en Haití que en Jamaica

«Where Newell was right, however, was in underlining that there was a significant French influence on the nature of sacrifice in Creole religions.» — sin dar por perdido todo el argumento contrario: concede que Newell acertaba al subrayar una influencia francesa apreciable sobre la forma del sacrificio en las religiones criollas

«Recent anthropological studies confirm that stories of human sacrifice continue to circulate in the Caribbean.» — y cierra con lo que la antropología reciente sí confirma, que las historias de sacrificio humano siguen circulando en el Caribe

«For the authorities the name expressed more than a book; it was the magical tradition.» — el desplazamiento semántico que documenta en las Mascareñas: para las autoridades el nombre del Petit Albert ya no designaba un libro sino la tradición mágica entera

«although they practise on the lines laid down in ‘‘Petit Albert,’’ not one in 20 ever saw the book or could read it if laid before them.» — y la observación de época que lo confirma, con no más de uno de cada veinte practicantes que hubiera visto el libro o pudiera leerlo si se lo pusieran delante

«By the twentieth century it is fair to say that the Petit Albert had achieved legendary status across the archipelagos, even if most inhabitants of the islands have never seen let alone read it.» — de ahí su conclusión para el siglo XX, que el Petit Albert alcanzó estatuto legendario en los archipiélagos aun sin ser leído

«On Rodriguez Island, for example, it has been observed that ‘everybody knows titalbe`r, without knowing exactly what it is.’» — hasta el punto de que en Rodrigues todo el mundo conoce el nombre sin saber exactamente qué es

«Although some have argued that they derive from similar indigenous medical notions, there is evidence pointing to a European rather than native origin.» — adjudica origen europeo y no indígena a la teoría humoral de las medicinas populares de la región, contra quienes la derivan de nociones nativas semejantes

«We need to be aware, though, that humoral theory is not uniformly central to medical beliefs across the region, and other therapeutic principles, such as those based on spirits, coexist with humoral causation.» — y acota enseguida su propia tesis: la teoría humoral no es central de manera uniforme en toda la región, y convive con principios terapéuticos basados en espíritus

«The role of grimoires in this process has been little considered, though it has been suggested that humoral theory introduced to Haitian folk medicine by the early French colonialists was revived and perpetuated through the widespread circulation of the Grand and Petit Albert during the nineteenth century.» — declara poco atendido el papel de los grimorios en ese proceso, y recoge la sugerencia de que la teoría humoral llevada por los primeros colonos franceses se reavivó por esa vía

«Much of the Grand Albert and the medical content of the Petit Albert, such as the ‘curious secrets touching the effects of nature’, were clearly based on humoral theory.» — porque buena parte del Grand Albert y el contenido médico del Petit Albert descansaban con claridad en la teoría humoral

«The answer lies in the influence of Islamic popular religion.» — su explicación de por qué el grimorio europeo no prendió en el África occidental francófona: la religión popular islámica ya ocupaba ese lugar

«Writing in the early twentieth century Reginald Campbell Thompson, an expert on ancient Semitic magic, noted from personal experience, that ‘from Morocco to Mesopotamia, books of magic are by no means rare, and manuscripts in Arabic, Hebrew, Gershuni, and Syriac can frequently be bought.’» — y el testimonio de Reginald Campbell Thompson, que a comienzos del XX daba por nada raros los libros de magia de Marruecos a Mesopotamia

«It was the Koran, rather than the Bible or European esoteric traditions, that consequently became most deeply engrained in Mende conceptions of literary magic.» — en los mende fue el Corán, y no la Biblia ni las tradiciones esotéricas europeas, lo que quedó más hondo en la concepción de la magia escrita

«So, the venerable Islamic tradition of literary magic that infused through trade and cultural contact, acted as a buffer against the European grimoires made available through colonial rule.» — de donde su tesis: la vieja tradición islámica de magia literaria, llegada por comercio y contacto, funcionó de amortiguador frente a los grimorios europeos que traía la colonia

«In the absence of cheap British grimoires, entrepreneurial American publishers would step into the magical breach.» — y el hueco que esa ausencia dejó en el mundo británico, donde a falta de grimorios baratos entrarían los editores estadounidenses

«The philosopher Francis Bacon, writing in 1605, dismissed their mystical interpretation and determined that the hieroglyphs were far from being the sacred code of a higher philosophical civilization.» — la objeción temprana de Francis Bacon en 1605, que negaba a los jeroglíficos la condición de código sagrado de una civilización filosófica superior

«He wrote a series of publications on the subject, including the monumental Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1654), in which he proudly set out not only the meaning of the hieroglyphs but the origin of Egyptian civilization.» — frente a ella, el proyecto de Kircher, que en su Oedipus Aegyptiacus de 1654 se propuso dar el significado de los jeroglíficos y el origen de la civilización egipcia

«Kircher was led almost entirely down the wrong path due to his adherence to the notion that they encapsulated a secret symbolic meaning, that they were the language of divine communication.» — y la causa que Davies adjudica a su extravío casi total, la convicción de que los signos encerraban un sentido simbólico secreto, lengua de comunicación divina

«Antoine Court de Gebelin claimed that Tarot card images constituted a symbolic essence of the Book of Thoth, thus encapsulating the wisdom of ancient Egypt.» — la atribución de Court de Gebelin, que hacía de las imágenes del tarot la esencia simbólica del Libro de Thot y con ello de la sabiduría del Egipto antiguo

«Cagliostro came across a manuscript treatise on the Egyptian origins of Freemasonry written by one George Cofton, a man of whom nothing concrete is known whether he existed at all.» — y su búsqueda negativa sobre el autor del tratado que inspiró a Cagliostro, del que no se sabe nada concreto, ni siquiera si existió

«with the discovery in 1799 of the Rosetta Stone, a black granite slab inscribed with a Ptolemaic decree written in Demotic Egyptian, Greek, and hieroglyphs, that translation was made possible.» — data en 1799 el hallazgo de la piedra de Rosetta, con un decreto ptolemaico en demótico, griego y jeroglíficos, que hizo posible la traducción

«But, perhaps Wttingly, it was a French philologist, Jean Franc¸ois Champollion (1790–1832), who, with his detailed knowledge of Coptic, Demotic, and Greek, fully cracked the code in the 1820s.» — y en la década de 1820 el desciframiento completo por Champollion, apoyado en su conocimiento del copto, el demótico y el griego

«What his work revealed was not a mystical language but a sophisticated means of recording the mundane legal, Wscal, and administrative workings of a sophisticated society—and the magical practices that underpinned its conception of life and the afterlife.» — lo que ese desciframiento reveló, y que ordena todo el capítulo: no una lengua mística sino el registro de lo legal, fiscal y administrativo de una sociedad compleja, y las prácticas mágicas dentro de ella

«The New and true Egyptian fortune-teller was, for example, attributed to ‘Ptolomy, King of the Gypsies’.» — la atribución fantasma de un adivinatorio popular, puesto bajo el nombre de un rey de los gitanos

«Most versions of this claimed that it was a German translation of an ancient Egyptian manuscript found in an Egyptian royal tomb in 1801 by one M. Sonnini—a reference probably to the French traveller and historian Charles S. Sonnini, whose book Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt was published in 1800.12» — y la genealogía inventada del Book of Fate napoleónico, que se decía traducción alemana de un manuscrito egipcio antiguo hallado en una tumba real en 1801

«The same story was repeated in another Bibliothe`que bleue grimoire that appeared a few years later entitled The Old Man of the Pyramids.» — la misma historia de origen reaparece pocos años después en otro grimorio de librillo azul, señal de que el relato circulaba como fórmula editorial

«Maspero and the editor of the publication, the archaeologist Ahmed Bey Kamal, believed the Book of Buried Pearls had caused more destruction to ancient monuments than war and the ravages of time.» — recoge el juicio de Maspero y del arqueólogo Ahmed Bey Kamal sobre el Libro de las Perlas Enterradas, al que adjudicaban más destrucción de monumentos antiguos que la guerra y el tiempo

«What is certain is that Anastasi became a wealthy merchant and prospered in the antiquities trade.» — lo único que da por cierto sobre el mercader Anastasi, que se hizo rico y prosperó en el comercio de antigüedades

«It is likely that some of these later magical papyri, such as several rolls purchased from Anastasi by the Louvre, were probably part of the cache found in 1828 but it is impossible to prove conclusively.» — y su abstención sobre la procedencia de los papiros mágicos que el Louvre le compró, probablemente del depósito hallado en 1828 pero imposible de probar de modo concluyente

«It was the Viennese papyri expert Carl Wessely (1860–1931) who did most to make knowledge of the Graeco-Egyptian grimoires accessible.» — adjudica al papirólogo vienés Carl Wessely el mayor mérito en hacer accesible el conocimiento de los grimorios grecoegipcios

«It was his work La Magie chez les Chalde´ennes (1874) that added a new dimension to Western understanding of ancient written magic.» — y a La Magie chez les Chaldéennes de Lenormant, de 1874, el haber añadido una dimensión nueva a la comprensión occidental de la magia escrita antigua

«Despite all the academic interest in ancient civilizations—a professorial chair in Egyptology was created at Berlin University as early as 1846—the scholarly community was not exactly consumed by curiosity regarding the secrets of the magical papyri.» — el contraste que le interesa: había cátedra de egiptología en Berlín desde 1846 y aun así la comunidad erudita no ardía de curiosidad por estos textos

«When, in 1875, Maspero produced an edition of a Demotic magical papyrus he felt it necessary to excuse the publication of these ‘magical formulae without much interest for science’.» — prueba de ello es que Maspero, al editar en 1875 un papiro mágico demótico, creyera necesario excusar la publicación de fórmulas de poco interés para la ciencia

«He was trying to deXect such criticism as that uttered by the scholar who complained that the magical papyri ‘deprived antiquity of the noble splendour of classicism’.» — y el reproche que buscaba esquivar, el del erudito que acusaba a los papiros mágicos de despojar a la antigüedad del noble esplendor del clasicismo

«Magic, he concluded, was too near religion to be neglected by scholars.» — frente a eso, el argumento de Maspero que Davies hace suyo, que la magia está demasiado cerca de la religión para que los estudiosos la desatiendan

«The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, was the most inXuential occult movement to form out of the spiritualist social ether.» — data en 1875 la fundación de la Sociedad Teosófica y la señala como el movimiento ocultista más influyente salido del ambiente espiritista

«It was they who dictated to her the founding text of Theosophy, Isis Unveiled.» — consigna como afirmación de Blavatsky, no como hecho, que fueran los mahatmas quienes le dictaron el texto fundacional de la teosofía

«Le´vi said he had studied numerous grimoires over many years and had come to the conclusion that the only useful ones were all in manuscript and required deciphering using the codes formulated by Trithemius; ‘the importance of others consists wholly in the hieroglyphs and symbols which adorn them.’» — el criterio de Éliphas Lévi sobre los grimorios, que tras años de estudio daba por útiles solo los manuscritos, descifrables con las claves de Tritemio

«He knew well the Bibliothe`que bleue grimoires, dismissing them as ‘catch-penny mystiWcations and impostures of dishonest publishers’.» — y su desprecio por los de librillo azul, mistificaciones de a centavo e imposturas de editores deshonestos

«It transpired later that the priest was Jean-Louis Verger, a troublesome and mentally unstable young man who, in 1857, murdered the archbishop of Paris during service.» — quién era el joven sacerdote que buscaba al maestro de magia, un hombre inestable que en 1857 asesinó al arzobispo de París durante el oficio

«Le´vi made two well-received visits to England in 1854 and 1856, where his main contact was with the novelist, politician, and student of the occult Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73), whom later magic groups would falsely claim as a high proWle member.» — data en 1854 y 1856 los dos viajes de Lévi a Inglaterra y nombra a su contacto principal, el novelista y político Bulwer-Lytton

«Fanciful stories have circulated about Randolph being initiated by Le´vi, but there is absolutely no evidence for it.» — y desarma la leyenda de una iniciación de Randolph por Lévi: han circulado historias fantasiosas, y no hay absolutamente ninguna evidencia

«For Randolph the ritualized use of the orgasm could provide a gateway to the universal mystery of life, giving a new meaning to the magic wand.» — lo que Randolph sí sostenía, que el uso ritualizado del orgasmo abría la puerta al misterio universal de la vida

«Davidson claimed the Brotherhood originated in Egypt long before the time of Hermes Trismegistus, and stressed to initiates that it was a Western order as distinct from the Eastern esotericism of the Theosophists.» — la antigüedad que Davidson adjudicaba a su Hermandad, originada en Egipto mucho antes de Hermes Trismegisto, y occidental frente al esoterismo oriental de la teosofía

«The utopian community never materialized though, and Davidson scraped a living as a herbal doctor and supplier of magic mirrors, crystals, and books from his home in Loudsville, Georgia.» — contra esa fachada, la vida material que documenta: la comunidad utópica nunca se materializó y Davidson malvivía vendiendo hierbas, espejos mágicos, cristales y libros desde su casa en Georgia

«He also said, ‘I can get you Agrippa’s 4 Books if you wish. I have not them in stock just now; they are rather diYcult to be had now as they are getting very scarce.’» — y su oferta epistolar de los cuatro libros de Agripa, que decía no tener en existencia y estar volviéndose muy escasos

«More surprising was his adoption of the Scottish title Count MacGregor of Glenstrae, bogusly claiming that Louis XV had bestowed it on an ancestor after the Jacobite rebellion.» — la falsificación de linaje que anota en Mathers, que se adjudicó un título escocés diciendo falsamente que Luis XV lo había concedido a un antepasado

«In 1888 he produced the Qabbalah Unveiled, a translation of a seventeenth-century Latin treatise, and a book on the Tarot.» — data en 1888 su Qabbalah Unveiled, traducción de un tratado latino del siglo XVII, y un libro sobre el tarot

«Mathers was well aware of this, mentioning that he had seen grimoires ascribed to Solomon which were ‘full of evil magic, and I cannot caution the practical student too strongly against them.’» — la advertencia del propio Mathers sobre lo que circulaba bajo el nombre de Salomón, grimorios llenos de magia perversa contra los que no podía prevenir bastante al estudiante práctico

«When, four years later, Mathers and his French-born wife moved to Paris, Annie continued to pay them an allowance, but when this ceased he eked out a living selling Turkish Railway shares to supplement his income from writing.» — y la precariedad económica tras la mudanza a París, con Mathers vendiendo acciones de ferrocarriles turcos cuando cesó la asignación de Annie Horniman

«It was quite possibly one of those conWscated by the Paris police in their campaign against the magicians.» — marca como conjetura, no como hecho, que el manuscrito en cuestión fuera uno de los confiscados por la policía de París en su campaña contra los magos

«In contrast, his Devil Worship in France (1896), an expose´ of supposed Satanists, was praised in the academic journal The American Anthropologist as an ‘invaluable’ work for serious students of occultism and mysticism.» — la recepción académica que consigna para el Devil Worship in France de Waite, de 1896, elogiado en The American Anthropologist como obra inestimable para el estudio serio del ocultismo

«Waite’s most successful venture was a Tarot pack published in 1910, but the publication of most interest to us is his Book of Black Magic and of Pacts (1898).» — de toda la obra de Waite, la que a Davies le interesa es el Book of Black Magic and of Pacts de 1898

«This was the Wrst major history and exposition of the whole genre of grimoires, providing bibliographies and extracts from the range of works I have discussed so far, such as the Arbatel, the Clavicules of Solomon, Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, the Grand grimoire, Book of Honorius, and the Poule noire.» — porque fue la primera historia y exposición mayor del género entero, con bibliografías y extractos del Arbatel a la Clavícula

«Waite’s motivation—apart from money—was the same as the likes of Reginald Scot and Georg Conrad Horst in that he set before readers a cornucopia of practical magic for the explicit purpose of undermining it.» — y adjudica a Waite el mismo motivo que a Reginald Scot y a Georg Conrad Horst, poner delante del lector un muestrario de magia práctica con el propósito explícito de socavarla

«Waite was well aware, of course, that its contents would be of huge interest to practical occultists and pointedly stated that he intended to provide them with ‘the fullest evidence of the futility of Ceremonial Magic as it is found in books’.» — cosa que Waite declaraba de frente, prometiendo a los ocultistas prácticos la prueba más completa de la futilidad de lo que buscaban

«Without naming him directly, he referred to the editor of the Key of Solomon as ‘an expositor of the more arid and unproWtable side of Kabalistic doctrine’.» — el ataque de Waite al editor de la Key of Solomon, hecho sin nombrarlo, que Davies identifica como dirigido a Mathers

«There was, of course, a foundation text with the usual dubious history.» — el patrón que le reconoce a la Golden Dawn, un texto fundacional con la acostumbrada historia de origen dudosa

«He, in turn, handed it to Westcott who, recognizing the cipher as one described by Trithemius, set about decoding it.» — la vía por la que Westcott dijo haber abierto el manuscrito cifrado, reconociendo en él una clave descrita por Tritemio

«It also contained the address of one Anna Sprengel, a Rosicrucian adept in Nuremberg whose order had a direct line of descent from the medieval brotherhood.» — y la pieza que ese descifrado produjo, la dirección de una adepta rosacruz de Núremberg cuya orden descendía en línea directa de la hermandad medieval

«As can be imagined, this account has been called into doubt.» — declara puesto en duda ese relato de fundación

«In fact, in 1900, Mathers wrote a letter to Florence Farr stating that Westcott had forged both the cipher manuscript and the correspondence with the mysterious Anna Sprengel.» — y da la acusación concreta con fecha: en 1900 Mathers escribió que Westcott había falsificado tanto el manuscrito cifrado como la correspondencia con la misteriosa Anna Sprengel

«Budge’s work is no longer treated seriously by Egyptologists, though, as he wrote quickly and often without appropriate scholarly caution or rigour.» — la corrección que anota sobre Budge, cuya obra los egiptólogos ya no toman en serio porque escribía deprisa y a menudo sin la cautela ni el rigor debidos

«In 1904 relations between Crowley and his patron had turned sour with Crowley suspecting that Mathers was using black magic against him.» — data en 1904 la ruptura entre Crowley y su patrón, con Crowley sospechando que Mathers le hacía magia negra

«As an act of revenge, he published under his own name a British Library manuscript, the ‘Lemegeton; Clavicula Salomonis or the Little Key of Solomon’, which consisted of a list of spirits and their characters, that Mathers had transcribed.» — y el acto de venganza que siguió, publicar bajo su propio nombre un manuscrito de la British Library, la Lemegeton o Pequeña Clave de Salomón

«A few years later Crowley also published the rituals of the Golden Dawn in an occult journal he had founded, despite Mathers’ legal attempts to stop him.» — poco después publicó también los rituales de la Golden Dawn en una revista suya, pese a los intentos legales de Mathers por impedirlo

«The ‘secrets’ of the Golden Dawn were now out in the open, allowing later historians to piece together the various old and new occult sources from which Mathers and Westcott had stitched together the Order’s ritual magic.» — con lo que los secretos quedaron a la vista y los historiadores posteriores pudieron reconstruir las fuentes viejas y nuevas que Mathers y Westcott habían cosido

«It could be argued that they constitute a mere footnote in the story of grimoires.» — y él mismo relativiza el peso de todo ese episodio en su historia, que admite podría tenerse por simple nota al pie

«It was in France though, the home of the cheap print grimoire, that the occultists were most attuned to a wider audience and the mundane magical needs of the people.» — adjudica a Francia, patria del grimorio impreso barato, los ocultistas más atentos al público amplio y a las necesidades mágicas corrientes de la gente

«Abbe´ Julio, as Houssay was better known, was forced to leave the priesthood after alienating himself from his superiors and being accused of fraud.» — el antecedente del Abbé Julio, obligado a dejar el sacerdocio tras enemistarse con sus superiores y ser acusado de fraude

«Although Houssay was apparently never a member of any occult group, there is no doubt he was inXuenced by the activities and writings of the second generation of French Wn-de-sie`cle occultists who followed in Le´vi’s footsteps.» — y una búsqueda negativa sobre su filiación, al parecer nunca miembro de grupo ocultista alguno, aunque influido por los ocultistas franceses de fin de siglo

«Abbe´ Julio, who was more rooted in the provincial religious culture of healing and magic than the urbanite Papus, innovated by stripping out the esoteric and philosophical content of such nineteenth-century occult works and providing practical help under the auspices of Catholic piety.» — lo que sí adjudica a Julio como innovación, haber quitado el contenido esotérico y filosófico de esa literatura para dejar la práctica

«T he production of grimoires was an entrepreneurial enterprise that thrived wherever the inXuence of secular and ecclesiastical censors was restricted by geographical, educational, or political factors.» — su tesis general sobre la producción de grimorios, empresa comercial que prosperaba justamente donde la censura secular y eclesiástica quedaba limitada por geografía, educación o política

«One late-nineteenth-century folklorist, Henry Carrington Bolton, attempted to trace the advancement of American society and consequent decline of ‘superstition’ through studying the advertising pages of the press.» — el intento del folclorista de medir el avance de la sociedad estadounidense y el retroceso de la superstición contando anuncios de adivinos en la prensa

«With hindsight we know that Harrington was way oV the mark.» — y su corrección a ese pronóstico, que visto en retrospectiva erró por completo

«There was nothing distinctively African-American about the divinatory methods explained in these books, and nothing of practical magic.» — su hallazgo negativo sobre los primeros libros de adivinación dirigidos a lectores afroamericanos, sin nada distintivamente afroamericano en sus métodos y sin magia práctica

«The use of the term was Wrst recorded in the 1880s, and although it is sometimes used as a synonym for Voodoo they were two distinct traditions.» — y la distinción que no deja armonizar: el término hoodoo se registra por primera vez en la década de 1880 y, aunque a veces se use como sinónimo de vudú, eran dos tradiciones distintas

«Hoodoo lacked the organized aspects and religious framework of Haitian Voodoo, which in the USA was largely restricted to New Orleans and was in terminal decline by the late nineteenth century.» — al hoodoo le faltaban la organización y el marco religioso del vudú haitiano, que en Estados Unidos quedó casi confinado a Nueva Orleans y en franca decadencia a fines del XIX

«The Wrst cheap grimoire to exploit the hoodoo tradition was The Life and Works of Marie Laveau, published in the early twentieth century.» — data a comienzos del siglo XX el primer grimorio barato que explotó la tradición hoodoo

«The Life and Works does not seem to have circulated widely beyond Louisiana and neighbouring states.» — y acota su alcance, sin circulación aparente más allá de Luisiana y los estados vecinos

«It would seem that the Wrst awkward English translation of 1846, The Long Secreted Friend, was one of Hohman’s very last publishing enterprises.» — sitúa la primera traducción inglesa, torpe, de 1846, entre las últimas empresas editoriales de Hohman

«The charm book that rose to greatest cultural prominence in the region was another ‘friend’—Der lang verborgene Freund, Wrst published in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1820.» — y data el original alemán del libro de ensalmos que más peso cultural tuvo en la región, publicado en Reading, Pensilvania, en 1820

«Along with his wife and son, Hohman, a Roman Catholic unlike most of his fellow German emigrants, sailed from Hamburg in 1802 and arrived in Philadelphia in October that year.» — el dato de filiación que separa a Hohman de sus paisanos, católico entre emigrantes alemanes que en su mayoría no lo eran, embarcado en Hamburgo en 1802

«The preface to the magical Der Freund provided a typically hoary tale of a mythical foreign book Wlled with hidden knowledge:» — y la fórmula editorial que su prólogo repite, la historia manida de un libro extranjero y mítico lleno de saber escondido

«He went on to point out that he sold his books ‘publicly, and not secretly, as other mystical works are sold’, and drew on his European experience when expressing his appreciating that ‘useful’ and ‘morally right’ books were ‘not prohibited in the United States, as is the case in other countries where kings and despots hold tyrannical sway’.» — la defensa que Hohman hacía de su propio comercio, que vendía sus libros públicamente y no en secreto como se venden otras obras místicas

«People purchased the Long Lost Friend not only for its contents but also for its inherent protective power.» — el uso que Davies documenta para el Long Lost Friend, comprado no solo por su contenido sino por el poder protector del objeto mismo

«By the early twentieth century numerous further editions of the Long Lost Friend, some under the title Pow-Wows, had ensured that it was Wrmly cemented in the medical tradition of ethnic Germans.» — y su consolidación a comienzos del XX, con ediciones repetidas, algunas tituladas Pow-Wows, que lo fijaron en la tradición médica de los alemanes étnicos

«In 1904 it was reported that the Society had found that it was ‘almost exclusively used by the witch-doctors in preparing their charms and in giving advice’.» — el informe médico de 1904 sobre el condado de Berks, donde el libro se usaba casi exclusivamente por los curanderos para preparar sus ensalmos y dar consejo

«In a letter written to the press in 1904 a Lutheran Minister suggested that its inXuence extended beyond Pennsylvania, ‘possibly the larger portion of the country east of the Mississippi, and possibly even beyond.’» — y la carta de un ministro luterano el mismo año, que extendía esa influencia a buena parte del país al este del Misisipi

«Roback the wizard The Long Secreted Friend may have been the Wrst English language grimoire to be published in the USA, but the Wrst to boldly declare its contents as providing ‘magical’ wisdom appeared a few years later.» — distingue dos primicias que suelen confundirse: el Long Secreted Friend pudo ser el primer grimorio en inglés publicado en Estados Unidos, pero el primero en declarar abiertamente mágico su contenido fue otro

«These impressive-sounding institutions were the inventions of an inveterate liar.» — y adjudica sin rodeos las instituciones de sonoro nombre que Roback se atribuía a las invenciones de un mentiroso incorregible

«The fact that he had been caught out perpetrating a series of petty frauds, including signing a promissory note using a false name, just might have had something do with his desertion.» — la vida real que le documenta antes de emigrar, con una serie de fraudes menores incluida la firma de un pagaré con nombre falso

«Roback’s humble and inglorious life before arriving in America is in stark contrast with his own autobiographical account, which tells a far more noble and extraordinary story.» — en contraste flagrante con su propia autobiografía, que cuenta una historia mucho más noble y extraordinaria

«Frithiof revealed to Charles that these hereditary powers were rendered more potent in him by being the seventh son of a seventh son.» — donde el linaje mágico se remataba haciéndolo séptimo hijo de un séptimo hijo, lo que volvía más potentes los poderes heredados

«He landed in America on the 14 June 1844 and over the next nine years resided in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.» — frente a esa fábula, la cronología que Davies sí fija, con su desembarco el 14 de junio de 1844 y nueve años entre Baltimore, Filadelfia, Nueva York y Boston

«This itinerary is partly conWrmed by Roback’s most ardent critic, Thomas Hague, a disgruntled Philadelphian astrologist who styled himself the ‘United States Astrologer’.» — itinerario que confirma en parte su crítico más encarnizado, un astrólogo de Filadelfia que se hacía llamar el Astrólogo de los Estados Unidos

«Hague denounced Roback as a vile impostor and a corrupting social inXuence.» — y que denunciaba a Roback como vil impostor e influencia social corruptora

«According to Hague, Roback’s Wrst occupation in America was running a grog shop in Baltimore, where he passed himself of as William Williams, alias Billy the Swede or Dutch Bill.» — según ese mismo crítico, el primer oficio de Roback en América fue una taberna de Baltimore, donde se hacía pasar por otro con dos apodos

«He employed an associate to pass himself of as the grandson of the great Hufeland newly arrived from Grimoires USA» — el paso más audaz de su campaña publicitaria fue emplear a un cómplice para que se hiciera pasar por nieto del gran Hufeland recién llegado

«By 1860 Roback was the most well-known occultist in America.» — el techo de fama que le adjudica: hacia 1860 Roback era el ocultista más conocido de Estados Unidos

«However, at the same period, no such law had been instituted in Pennsylvania—as Roback was apparently aware.» — y el vacío legal en que se apoyaba, porque Pensilvania no tenía entonces una ley como la que ya regía en otros estados

«The jury found him guilty but Judge King cast doubt on the law of false pretences being appropriate in such a case.» — el resultado ambiguo del proceso, con jurado condenatorio y un juez que dudaba de que la figura de estafa fuera la aplicable

«In 1854 he published his magnum opus, the rather handsome, gilt-edged Mysteries of Astrology, and the Wonders of Magic, dedicated magnanimously ‘To the People of the United States, a Nation neither Skeptical nor Credulous’, and in which he boasted he had ‘given audience to more than two hundred thousand applicants for magical information’.» — data en 1854 el magnum opus de su rival Thomas Hague, dedicado con solemnidad a una nación que declaraba ni escéptica ni crédula

«He denounced Roback as ‘a perfect fraud and an impostor, who knew no more of astrology than he did about Xying’.» — y la acusación de Hague contra Roback, fraude e impostor que no sabía de astrología más que de volar

«At the time, he recalled, ‘there was not an American, either man or woman, in the whole United States who could even erect a horoscope,’ and the few astrologers who could were French, English, and German immigrants.» — junto con la afirmación de Hague de que en todo el país no había un solo estadounidense capaz de levantar un horóscopo, y que los pocos astrólogos eran franceses, ingleses y alemanes

«Amongst them he presumably included Hague, who, as the 1850 census shows, was also born in England.» — que Davies contrasta con el censo de 1850, donde el propio Hague figura nacido en Inglaterra

«As to the magical content of the Mysteries of Astrology, it contained neither spells nor instructions on conjuration.» — su comprobación negativa del contenido de esa obra, sin conjuros ni instrucciones de conjuración pese a la fama

«In 1857 a Philadelphia bookseller was selling it for $2.50,52 which was nearly as much as a week’s wage for an agricultural worker and a third of an artisan’s weekly salary.» — y el precio que documenta en 1857, dos dólares y medio, casi el jornal semanal de un peón agrícola y un tercio del de un artesano

«Large-scale Scandinavian emigration to the United States only began in the late 1860s, and so in Roback’s day the Swedish settler communities could not provide the strong ethnic market that sustained Hohman’s occult enterprises.» — la razón de mercado por la que Roback no pudo hacer lo que Hohman: la emigración escandinava masiva no empezó hasta fines de la década de 1860, y no había todavía comunidad que sostuviera un mercado étnico

«What he failed to grasp was the appeal of the older chapbook tradition and the demand for practical magic.» — y lo que a su juicio Roback no entendió, el atractivo de la vieja tradición de librillos y la demanda de magia práctica

«The Copenhagen edition depicts the Devil sitting on a crescent moon while the Chicago version displays its American status by having a picture of a bald eagle.» — el detalle de imprenta con que ilustra la adaptación local de un mismo libro, con el diablo sobre la luna en la edición de Copenhague y un águila calva en la de Chicago

«There was no clear-cut distinction between a pow wow doctor and a hex or witch doctor in Pennsylvanian German folklore, but there were those who did much more than cure ailments with herbs, prayer, and charms from the Long Lost Friend.» — advierte que en el folclore de los alemanes de Pensilvania no había frontera nítida entre el pow wow doctor y el hex doctor

«For such a task Hohman’s book was useful but not as potent and rich in talismanic aid as the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.» — y la jerarquía de libros que sí regía entre ellos, con el de Hohman útil pero menos potente en auxilio talismánico que los Sexto y Séptimo Libros de Moisés

«Considering that the magic book market of the mid-nineteenth century primarily catered to Pennsylvania Germans, it is no surprise that the Wrst American edition of the Moses Books appeared in German in the 1860s.» — por lo mismo data la primera edición estadounidense de los Libros de Moisés en alemán, ajustada al mercado que la sostenía

«While the Long Lost Friend was considered a pious work The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses had a more sinister reputation amongst Pennsylvania Germans.» — la reputación desigual de los dos: obra piadosa el Long Lost Friend, libro siniestro los de Moisés entre los mismos lectores

«For hex doctors, though, possession of the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses was essential to building a reputation.» — y aun así la posesión de los Libros de Moisés era imprescindible para que un hex doctor se hiciera de fama

«The suggestion by some of the press was that Leas’s insanity had been provoked by his own reading of the Seventh Book of Moses.» — consigna como sugerencia de parte de la prensa, no como hecho, que la locura de Leas viniera de leer el Séptimo Libro de Moisés

«It is not clear from the trial reports whether Blymyer believed that Rehmeyer used the Long Lost Friend to hex people or whether he thought that the protective powers of the book made him immune to counter witchcraft.» — y se abstiene en el punto central del caso de York, porque las actas del juicio no aclaran si Blymyer creía que Rehmeyer usaba el libro para hechizar o que el libro lo hacía inmune

«Blymyer knew the book well enough, for when police searched his room in York they found notes and charms transcribed from the Long Lost Friend and the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.» — lo que sí consta es que Blymyer conocía bien esa literatura, porque la policía halló en su cuarto notas y ensalmos copiados de los dos libros

«There is no evidence to suggest they had murder on their minds, but in the struggle to pacify Rehmeyer, they kicked him and hit him over the head with a piece of wood and a chair.» — y no hay evidencia de que fueran con intención de matar, aunque en el forcejeo lo patearon y le pegaron en la cabeza con un madero y una silla

«The press portrayal of the Long Lost Friend as a black arts or ‘witch book’ left an enduring stain on its reputation.» — el efecto duradero que adjudica a la prensa, que dejó al Long Lost Friend manchado como libro de artes negras

«When, in the early 1950s, a folklorist mentioned it to a Dutch Pennsylvania farmer he was told, ‘To hell with that . . . I wouldn’t have one in the house, and the old folks would’ve been better oV if they hadn’t.’» — y la reacción que un folclorista recogió a comienzos de la década de 1950 en un granjero, que no lo quería en su casa

«The most recent detailed study of pow wow practices in the state turned up no examples of its use amongst current practitioners, though its inXuence continues through the charms and remedies that have been handed down.» — cierra con una búsqueda negativa sobre su uso actual: el estudio detallado más reciente del pow wow no halló un solo caso entre practicantes vivos, aunque los ensalmos sigan influyendo

«It was the archetypal American cultural melting pot, with a large portion of its population being foreign born, mostly from Germany, Poland, Austria, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Ireland.» — el suelo demográfico de la escena mágica de Chicago, con buena parte de su población nacida fuera, sobre todo en Alemania, Polonia, Austria, Rusia, Suecia, Noruega e Irlanda

«It is signiWcant that they inserted ‘Egyptian’ between ‘Ancient’ and ‘Arabic’.» — el detalle onomástico que le parece significativo en la orden negra, haber intercalado la palabra egipcia entre antigua y arábiga

«According to the unreliable hagiographic history that surrounds his life, Timothy Drew was born in North Carolina in 1886 to ex-slaves living among Cherokee Indians.» — marca como hagiografía poco fiable, no como biografía, lo que se cuenta del nacimiento de Timothy Drew en Carolina del Norte en 1886

«On returning to America the re-styled prophet Noble Drew Ali preached that African-Americans were the descendants of an Asiatic nation descended from the Canaanites and Moabites, which in ancient times stretched from South America, to Africa and Atlantis.» — y resume lo que el profeta predicaba ya rebautizado, que los afroamericanos descendían de una nación asiática venida de cananeos y moabitas

«One cause of conXict was that several leading members were apparently making considerable money selling herbs, magical charms, and cult literature to followers.» — una de las causas de conflicto interno que documenta, con varios miembros destacados ganando dinero considerable vendiendo hierbas, amuletos y literatura del culto a los fieles

«His customers must have been bitterly disappointed, though, for Markiewicz’s version of the Seventh Book apparently consisted of no more than mundane recipes on how to cure colds and remove warts.» — el fraude editorial de Markiewicz, cuyo Séptimo Libro no pasaba de recetas corrientes para curar resfriados y quitar verrugas

«It turned out to be a basic Polish-English dictionary with an instruction that the purchaser memorize all its contents in three days.» — y su método con el resto, como el manual que prometía inglés en setenta y dos horas y era un diccionario con la orden de memorizarlo en tres días

«In 1900 the little known Egyptian Publishing Company of Chicago produced the Wrst version of the Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses to be printed in a couple of decades.» — data en 1900 la primera versión de los Sexto y Séptimo Libros de Moisés impresa en un par de décadas, salida de una editorial poco conocida de Chicago

«But it was an edition published in 1910 by another Chicago enterprise, Delaurence, Scott and Company, the producer of numerous esoteric and magical publications, which proved particularly inXuential in spreading its inXuence amongst the African-American population.» — pero adjudica la influencia decisiva a la edición de 1910 de Delaurence, Scott and Company

«In contrast to the malign reputation of the Moses Books amongst Pennsylvania Germans, they were treated with reverence in African-American hoodoo and mystical movements.» — y consigna sin armonizar la doble reputación del mismo libro, siniestro entre los alemanes de Pensilvania y reverenciado en el hoodoo afroamericano

«Matthews told his followers that he was born in Lagos, Nigeria, whereas in fact he was brought up on the Caribbean island of St Kitts.» — la falsificación de origen que documenta en Matthews, que decía a sus seguidores haber nacido en Lagos cuando se crió en la isla caribeña de San Cristóbal

«He found the Sixth and Seventh Books was already an integral aspect of hoodoo conjuration, used in conjunction with the Bible.» — y lo que el trabajo de campo encontró ya hecho, los Sexto y Séptimo Libros integrados a la conjuración hoodoo y usados junto con la Biblia

«The holy name is called: Jiheje (He is and will be), and is composed of the four Wnal letters of the words Teppillati, verse 2; Selah, verse 5; Jehovah, verse 6; and Toschiweni, verse 9.» — la técnica onomástica que el libro enseña, un nombre santo compuesto con las letras finales de cuatro palabras del salmo

«The reply was, ‘Both—but de meanings in de Book of Moses—Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.’» — y la respuesta de un practicante de hoodoo sobre de dónde saca los significados, que los remite al Libro de Moisés

«So began the career of America’s most inXuential occultist.» — el arranque de la carrera de quien Davies llama el ocultista más influyente de Estados Unidos

«The book sold well but when Delaurence paid a visit to Henneberry to collect his royalty payment he was told that the costs of production had been set against his royalties and that, in fact, he owed the publisher $15.» — el trato editorial que lo empujó a publicar por su cuenta, cuando el editor le cargó los costos de producción contra las regalías y le dijo que era él quien debía dinero

«It is likely that Scott never existed.» — su búsqueda negativa sobre el nombre mismo de la casa Delaurence, Scott and Company, porque Scott probablemente nunca existió

«He thought Drake’s plates were a translation from the German, but was not sure.» — y la incertidumbre que deja abierta sobre las planchas de Drake, que él creía traducción del alemán sin estar seguro

«A hitherto unknown aspect of Delaurence’s career was his brief stint as leader of a magic and miscegenation cult known as the Order of the Black Rose, which apparently worshipped at the feet of a perfumed, wooden cigar-store Indian.» — el episodio inédito que saca a la luz, el paso de Delaurence al frente de un culto de magia y mestizaje llamado Orden de la Rosa Negra

«Novices were initiated into the Order of the White Willow, which apparently consisted mostly, perhaps exclusively, of white women.» — cuya orden de novicias estaba formada sobre todo, quizá solo, por mujeres blancas

«Hanish claimed to be of Persian descent, though others stated he was German, Polish, or Russian.» — la genealogía disputada de Hanish, que se decía de ascendencia persa mientras otros lo daban por alemán, polaco o ruso

«As one of his admirers, Professor Ardesher Sorabji Wadia, recalled, ‘I know very little about the life of Dr Hanish for the simple reason that he himself kept it a sealed book.’» — y el testimonio de un admirador suyo, que sabía muy poco de su vida porque él mismo la mantenía como libro sellado

«This is highly unlikely though, as his followers desired social exclusivity and probably never numbered more than a few hundred in Chicago.» — objeta la cifra de seguidores que se le atribuía, muy improbable porque buscaban exclusividad social y en Chicago no pasarían de unos centenares

«In the end, the authorities did not pursue a prosecution under the Mann Act, and the trial was concerned only with fraud.» — el desenlace judicial que precisa: las autoridades no persiguieron el caso bajo la Mann Act y el juicio trató solo del fraude

«Helen told the authorities that her husband wanted her to become queen of the Order of the Black Rose, and that this would require that she take a black lover in order to further the Order’s aim of equalizing the rights of ‘Caucasians and Ethiopians’.» — el testimonio de la esposa ante las autoridades sobre lo que se le exigía para ser reina de la Orden de la Rosa Negra

«By this time Delaurence, who described himself in his puVs as ‘the greatest teacher, author and publisher of Occult and Magical Works the world has ever known’, had given up the troublesome business» — cómo se anunciaba Delaurence a sí mismo, el mayor maestro, autor y editor de obras ocultas y mágicas que el mundo haya conocido

«He had created a very successful mail order and retail business, selling not only grimoires but also all the equipment and ‘talismanic and symbolic jewellery’ required by students of the occult and those wishing to better their lives.» — y en qué consistía de veras el negocio, venta por correo y menudeo no solo de grimorios sino del equipo y la joyería talismánica que el estudiante del ocultismo necesitaba

«He estimated that around 20 per cent of business was overseas, mostly from Africa it would seem, since he complained that his proWts were slim on such orders due to the cost of Wrst-class post.» — con una quinta parte del giro en el extranjero, sobre todo África, donde se quejaba de que el franqueo de primera clase le adelgazaba la ganancia

«Delaurence claimed in his advertisements for the book that it was a revised and enlarged edition under his editorship, but during the trial he admitted that he had done no such thing.» — el fraude editorial que el propio Delaurence admitió en el juicio, que la edición anunciada como revisada y ampliada bajo su cuidado no lo era

«‘I attached my name there for the reason that I believe that when my name is on the book it helps create a sale,’ he said.» — y la razón que dio para poner ahí su nombre, que con su nombre el libro se vendía

«When asked, ‘who was Albertus Magnus?’, Delaurence replied, ‘He was a character we Wnd in the Bible.» — el desconocimiento que quedó de manifiesto cuando le preguntaron quién era Alberto Magno y contestó que un personaje de la Biblia

«He had the cheek to pirate the Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), written and illustrated by Waite» — y la piratería que Davies le adjudica sin rodeos, la del Pictorial Key to the Tarot de 1910, escrito e ilustrado por Waite

«He accepted that some of his products had no power, that he had no medical qualiWcations, that his virgin parchment was often not exactly virgin.» — lo que aceptó bajo interrogatorio, que algunos de sus productos no tenían poder, que carecía de título médico y que su pergamino virgen a menudo no lo era

«When asked whether he believed in the power of his parchment talismans he replied: ‘I believe in them.» — y aun así declaró creer en sus talismanes, coexistencia que Davies no armoniza

«Although it would seem that Delaurence gave up the idea of opening a retail store in light of the close attentions of the Post OYce Department, his mail order business continued to prosper.» — el efecto real de la vigilancia postal, que le hizo abandonar la idea de la tienda pero no detuvo el negocio por correo

«The thieves bound Delaurence, his wife, and a stenographer with wire, and made oV with $2,500 of jewellery.» — y la cifra que deja ver esa prosperidad, un robo de 2 500 dólares en joyería en sus nuevas oficinas

«But it is important to remember that Delaurence was not pushing an iconic American product, or even promoting American values.» — advierte contra leer el caso como exportación de un producto americano, porque Delaurence no vendía ni un icono ni valores estadounidenses

«He was successfully exploiting American commercial techniques to repackage and promote the wisdom and mysticism of the East and not the superiority of the West.» — lo que vendía, con técnica comercial estadounidense, era la sabiduría y el misticismo de Oriente, no la superioridad de Occidente

«Nowhere were his publications more inXuential than in Nigeria.» — y sitúa en Nigeria el mayor alcance de sus publicaciones

«Work among the Wimbum tribe has shown that The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses has altered their beliefs about the source and workings of ‘bad’ or magical medicine.» — el efecto medido entre los wimbum, donde los Sexto y Séptimo Libros de Moisés alteraron las creencias sobre el origen y el funcionamiento de la medicina dañina

«This was centred on a water spirit, the image of which was taken from a German chromolith of a snake charmer printed around 1885 and copied and reprinted many times in England and India.» — la procedencia que rastrea para la imagen del espíritu del agua, una cromolitografía alemana de un encantador de serpientes de hacia 1885, copiada y reimpresa muchas veces en Inglaterra y la India

«Dr Candido, like many Delaurence adherents, was unaware that he had long since died, praising him ‘as a very knowledgeable man’, and saying that ‘one day he hoped to go to America and visit him.’» — el detalle que muestra cuán vivo seguía el nombre, con adherentes que ignoraban su muerte y esperaban ir a América a visitarlo

«Although Oshitelu never admitted as such, he did mention in one of his publications, The Book of Prayer with Uses and Power of Psalms, that ‘Some will say this is Moses’ Book therefore it is bad.’» — la atribución que Oshitelu nunca reconoció y que Davies rastrea en una frase de su propio libro de oraciones

«Just as we have seen how in Europe and America grimoires assumed greater potency for having supposedly originated from other countries, so in western Africa overseas objects also accrued magical power.» — la regla que ve repetirse en los dos hemisferios, que el grimorio ganaba potencia por venir supuestamente de otro país

«Hans Debrunner believed the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses had led ‘to a sort of psychological slavery’ for those who owned it.» — recoge el juicio de Hans Debrunner, que adjudicaba a los Sexto y Séptimo Libros una especie de esclavitud psicológica sobre quien los poseía

«The government’s ban on its sale was thought to be in response to ‘its frequent use by incipient schizophrenics in cemeteries at night’.» — y el motivo que se atribuía a la prohibición gubernamental de su venta, el uso frecuente por esquizofrénicos incipientes en cementerios de noche

«Amongst the ‘good books’ was the Bible of course, but for many the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses were biblical, and attempts to suppress them was just another example of the white man’s intention to withhold secret wisdom.» — frente a eso consigna la otra lectura, la de quienes tenían esos libros por bíblicos y veían en su supresión un intento más del hombre blanco

«Delaurence was and is respected in West Africa but in the Caribbean he achieved mythical status.» — y la diferencia de escala entre las dos regiones, respetado en África occidental y de estatuto mítico en el Caribe

«The law against Obeah in colonial Jamaica was directed at ‘any person who, to eVect any fraudulent or unlawful, or for gain, or for the purpose of frightening any person, uses or pretends to use any occult means’.» — la letra de la ley jamaicana contra el obeah, dirigida a quien con fines fraudulentos, ilícitos, de lucro o de amedrentar usara o fingiera usar esas artes

«More to the point, it also included a section against any person that ‘shall compose, print, sell, or distribute any pamphlet or printed matter calculated to promote the superstition of obeah’.» — y el añadido que le importa como historiador del libro, la cláusula contra componer, imprimir, vender o distribuir impresos que promovieran la superstición del obeah

«The punishment was up to £30, or in default, up to six months’ imprisonment.» — con su pena tasada, hasta treinta libras o, en su defecto, hasta seis meses de cárcel

«While the government justiWed the ban as a means of protecting the people from those who exploited ‘superstition’ for Wnancial gain, the Jamaican opposition to colonial rule saw it as a cynical attempt by the British to limit the inXuence of unionism and the American black empowerment movement.» — consigna las dos lecturas del veto sin armonizarlas, protección de la gente frente a quienes lucraban con la superstición según el gobierno, maniobra cínica según la oposición al régimen colonial

«The ban, like all such prohibitions, may have kept Delaurence oV the shop shelves and out of the newspapers’ advertisements, but it could not stop his publications being read and used.» — y su propio balance de eficacia: la prohibición sacó a Delaurence de los estantes y de los anuncios, pero no impidió que se leyera y se usara

«It was presumably the numerous court cases brought during the 1930s that led the British colonial authorities to instigate further legislation to stem the Delaurence inXuence.» — adjudica a los numerosos procesos de la década de 1930 el impulso de la legislación británica posterior contra esa influencia

«A chemist said the substance recovered was ‘not ganja within the meaning of the Dangerous Drugs Law’, while the presiding magistrate decided speciously, ‘this book is apparently written by L. W. deLaurence but there is nothing in the book to show that it is published by deLaurence, Scott & Company incorporated of Chicago.’» — el fallo que llama especioso, donde el magistrado resolvía por quién aparecía como autor del libro

«When Michael Norman Manley, son of Norman W. Manley, came to power as leader of the left-wing People’s National Party in 1972 he lifted the ban on seventy-one publications listed in the Undesirable Publications Act.» — data en 1972 el levantamiento de la prohibición sobre setenta y una publicaciones cuando Michael Manley llegó al poder

«it was no surprise that most of the newly sanctioned publications were of a socialist nature, but the continued ban on occult works puzzled some.» — y lo que quedó fuera de esa apertura: casi todo lo liberado era de signo socialista y el veto a las obras ocultas siguió, cosa que desconcertó a algunos

«Recent research on Jamaican folk medicine reveals that, despite the ban, Delaurence’s inXuence spreads far beyond the chapels of the various revivalist and evangelical groups that Xourish on the island.» — la investigación reciente sobre medicina popular jamaicana que él cita, con la influencia de Delaurence bastante más allá de las capillas revivalistas y evangélicas

«As one practitioner explained, there is ‘natural evil’ associated with duppies (the restless spirits of the dead), and ‘Xying evil’ which is associated with white spirits originating from Delaurence.» — y la cosmología local que lo incorporó, con un mal volador asociado a espíritus blancos que se hacen venir de Delaurence

«They can be sent, some people think, from Chicago, the home of Delaurence, and also from England.» — espíritus que, según algunos, pueden enviarse desde Chicago, la casa de Delaurence, y también desde Inglaterra

«The most successful of these new paperback occult ventures was the Dorene Publishing Company founded in New York in 1937 by Joseph W. Spitalnick, the son of Russian immigrants.» — data en 1937 la fundación en Nueva York de la editorial que más éxito tuvo con el ocultismo en rústica

«Spitalnick, who anglicized his name to Joe Kay, made a modest living as a jazz musician and in the 1930s decided to supplement his income by becoming a small-time publisher, setting up first Dorene and then Empire Publishing a few years later.» — y el oficio de su fundador, músico de jazz que en los años treinta se hizo editor de poca monta para completar el ingreso

«One of Dorene’s earliest successes was Black Herman: Secrets of Magic-Mystery and Legerdemain, which capitalized on the fame of Benjamin Rucker, the most successful and well-known African-American magician of the era.» — el mecanismo de su primer éxito, capitalizar la fama de Benjamin Rucker, el mago afroamericano más conocido de su tiempo

«Rucker was born in Amherst, Virginia, in 1892. In his youth he became fascinated by the card tricks performed by a travelling salesman of quack medicine called Prince Herman, whose name was presumably inspired by editions of a popular paperback book on conjuring tricks entitled Herman’s Book of Black Art Magic Made Easy, written by the well-known American stage magician Alexander Herrmann (1844–96).» — los datos de nacimiento de Rucker en Virginia en 1892 y el vendedor ambulante de medicinas de cuyos juegos de naipes quedó prendado

«Although Joe Kay first published Black Herman four years after Rucker’s death (we can dismiss the Dorene claim that it was the fifteenth deluxe edition), it is possible that the magician wrote some of it.» — y su corrección a la propia editorial: el libro salió cuatro años después de la muerte de Rucker, y la pretensión de que fuera una decimoquinta edición de lujo se descarta

«Some sections of Black Herman read clearly like the sort of puff that quack doctors and stage magicians had long published to promote themselves on their travels, and the preface and foreword are dated 1925, New York.» — señala que partes del libro se leen como la propaganda que curanderos y magos de escenario venían publicando de sí mismos desde hacía mucho

«Black Herman’s ‘Life’ claimed he was born in the ‘dark jungles of Africa’.» — empezando por la vida legendaria, que lo hacía nacer en las junglas oscuras de África

«The sum total of the wisdom garnered from Herman’s extraordinary experiences, as revealed in Secrets of Magic-Mystery, consisted of no more than simple» — y la medida de lo que ese aparato entregaba en realidad, poco más que remedios simples

«No ceremonial spirit conjuration here, and as the above extracts suggest, some of the spells were basically vehicles for product promotion.» — sin conjuración ceremonial de espíritus, y con hechizos que eran en el fondo vehículos de promoción de productos

«John the Conqueror, the legendary name for various roots such as jalap and galangal, which were marketed as powerful luck charms, was a distinctive component of the African-American folk magic tradition.» — el ingrediente distintivo de la magia popular afroamericana que ahí se comercializa, la raíz llamada John the Conqueror vendida como amuleto de suerte

«This commercialization of charm production developed out of the flourishing trade in herbs, charms, perfumes, oils, candles, and other ingredients sold by druggists and the numerous ‘spiritual’, ‘religious’, or ‘candle’ stores that sprang up in urban African-American communities.» — y el comercio del que salió esa industria del amuleto, el de hierbas, perfumes, aceites y velas que despachaban boticarios y tiendas espirituales

«In Louisiana, for example, over a fifth of African-Americans had no schooling at all, leading the founder of the Nation of Islam, the mysterious W. P. Fard, to denounce such obscurantism as ‘tricknollogy’, the deliberate attempt to keep the» — la cifra educativa con que sitúa ese mercado, con más de una quinta parte de los afroamericanos de Luisiana sin escolarizar

«In 1940 The New York Amsterdam-News estimated that in Harlem alone more than 50,000 people were consulting such people annually, spending nearly $1,000,000.» — la cifra de 1940 con que mide el tamaño del negocio, más de 50 000 consultas anuales en Harlem y casi un millón de dólares gastados

«The commercial success of John the Conqueror was due, in part, to its purchase by gamblers.» — y el nicho que sostenía la venta de la raíz John the Conqueror, los apostadores

«On the last page of Black Herman was the following statement: ‘I am told one can gain a Mastery over Occultism by reading and studying some of the works of Lewis de Claremont, L. W. De Laurcne, Wait, Macgrueger, Duval Spencer and Young, and in this way can help to become an initiate.’» — la lista de autoridades que el propio Black Herman imprime en su última página para orientar al lector

«It is certainly curious that these are the only three names spelt correctly, the others perhaps being unfamiliar to the typesetter.» — el detalle tipográfico que Davies observa en esa lista, que solo tres nombres están bien escritos y los demás debieron resultarle ajenos al cajista

«The reason for this may have been because they were one and the same man; someone who, it is likely, also had a hand in writing parts of Black Herman.» — y la explicación que propone, que esos tres fueran un mismo hombre con mano probable en partes del propio Black Herman

«It was a Mr Young who gave Joe Kay his first occult manuscript for publication.» — el eslabón concreto de esa hipótesis, un tal Young que dio a Joe Kay su primer manuscrito ocultista para publicar

«The earliest occult publications of Lewis de Claremont, who was described in advertisements as ‘the famed adept’, and was depicted as a Hindu swami, were The Ancient Book of Formulas and Legends of Incense, Herb and Oil Magic, both of which were published by Oracle.» — la persona editorial de Lewis de Claremont, anunciado como el famoso adepto y retratado como suami hindú

«It would appear that de Claremont was the nom de plume of Young, who was also the proprietor of the Occult Products Company.» — que Davies identifica como seudónimo de Young, dueño también de la Occult Products Company

«According to Ed Kay, the son of Joe Kay, Young was also the one and the same as Henri Gamache, who wrote a series of magic pulps in the 1940s, which were published by Sheldon Publications and marketed by Dorene, among them the Mystery of the Long Lost 8th, 9th and 10th Books of Moses (1948) and the Master Key to Occult Secrets (1945).» — y la identificación adicional que le atribuye al hijo de Joe Kay, que hacía de Young el mismo Henri Gamache de los folletines mágicos de los años cuarenta

«Whether Gamache and de Claremont were one and the same is open to question.» — sin cerrarla: deja abierta la cuestión de si Gamache y de Claremont fueron uno solo

«They never achieved the mythic status of Delaurence, but their works were seen as being more accessible.» — el lugar que les asigna frente a Delaurence, sin su estatuto mítico y con obras tenidas por más accesibles

«It is true, though, that the North American grimoire tradition had less impact in Mexico and other Central American countries than it did in the Caribbean.» — y su acotación regional, con la tradición del grimorio norteamericano menos influyente en México y Centroamérica que en el Caribe

«Between 1900 and 1924 some five million left, heading mainly for Argentina and Cuba, though 3.8 million returned home.» — las cifras migratorias que explican el viaje de esos libros, cinco millones de españoles salidos entre 1900 y 1924 hacia Argentina y Cuba, con 3,8 millones de regreso

«Under Franco’s regime occult publications were effectively suppressed in Spain, and it was only from the late 1970s onwards that a new wave of editions poured off the Spanish presses.» — y el corte editorial que impuso el franquismo, con las publicaciones ocultas suprimidas de hecho hasta la nueva oleada de ediciones desde fines de los años setenta

«It is possible that the earliest South American edition of the Livro de Sa˜o Cipriano was produced in neighbouring Brazil.» — marca como posibilidad, no como dato, que la edición sudamericana más temprana del Livro de São Cipriano se hiciera en Brasil

«It is likely that it was these Latin American editions of the Libro de San Cipriano, rather than the earlier Spanish ones, that leached into the indigenous Indian magical traditions in some regions of South America.» — y adjudica a las ediciones latinoamericanas, más que a las españolas previas, la filtración del Libro de San Cipriano en tradiciones mágicas indígenas

«Not only do they consult the contents of the Libro de San Cipriano, the book itself is imbued with purifying qualities.» — el uso que documenta entre los putumayo, donde no solo se consulta el contenido sino que el libro mismo tiene cualidades purificadoras

«During the second half of the twentieth century Mexico City was probably the most active and influential centre of pulp grimoire production in Latin America.» — sitúa en la Ciudad de México, en la segunda mitad del siglo XX, el centro probablemente más activo e influyente de producción de grimorios de a peso en América Latina

«It was apparently a translation of one of the US editions and had a print run of 5,000.» — con datos de imprenta concretos, traducción aparente de una edición estadounidense y un tiraje de 5 000

«Yet in Mexican folk religion the Santa Muerte has also become an intercessionary patroness, resorted to by ‘good’ Catholics as well as those seeking to inflict harm.» — y su reparo a la lectura que hace de la Santa Muerte solo patrona de criminales, porque en la religiosidad popular mexicana también es intercesora de católicos que no buscan dañar

«It was in Germany, though, that the publication of cheap grimoires proved most contentious.» — adjudica a Alemania el conflicto más agrio en torno a la publicación de grimorios baratos

«Their racist philosophy of a supreme Teutonic life force, known as Ariosophy, later fed into Nazi racial ideology.» — y traza la filiación que va de la filosofía racista del ariosofismo a la ideología racial nazi

«In 1906 the German Theosophical Society set up their own publishing house in Leipzig, which produced not only theosophical works but also astrological periodicals and books.» — data en 1906 la casa editora que la Sociedad Teosófica alemana montó en Leipzig, con obras teosóficas y también periódicos y libros de astrología

«Equally prolific was an intriguing character named Franz Sa¨ttler (b. 1884), an expert on Arabic dialect and founder of the Adonistic Society, a sex-magic group formed in 1925.» — y describe a Franz Sättler, experto en dialecto árabe y fundador en 1925 de una sociedad de magia sexual, como uno de los editores más prolíficos del ramo

«Rumour would later have it that Angerstein was inspired by the hope of activating a seal said to be contained in one edition of the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, which would provide great riches to anyone who killed nine people.» — consigna como rumor posterior, no como móvil probado, que el asesino esperara activar un sello contenido en cierta edición de los Sexto y Séptimo Libros de Moisés

«Local police took photographs of the eyes of one of Angerstein’s victims after someone in the morgue said they saw the image of Angerstein with a raised axe in the eyes of the corpse.» — y la creencia forense de la época que la policía siguió, fotografiando los ojos de una víctima porque alguien dijo ver en ellos la imagen del homicida con el hacha en alto

«During the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich there were at least seventeen court cases in Germany involving the belief in witchcraft, some of which involved the ‘Moses Books’.» — la cifra judicial que da para el periodo, al menos diecisiete causas alemanas con creencia en brujería de por medio entre Weimar y el Tercer Reich, algunas con los Libros de Moisés

«There certainly were prominent Nazis who had an active interest in various aspects of the occult, most notably Himmler, Rudolf Hess, and SS-Oberfu¨hrer Karl Maria Wiligut, who, influenced by the work of Guido von List, developed his own mystic ‘key’ to the meaning of runes.» — concede que hubo nazis prominentes con interés activo en el ocultismo, y los nombra

«A recent authoritative study has rightly stressed that the Nazis’ ‘selective affinity for occultism was dwarfed by the enormity of their regime’s hostility to the occult movement more generally’.» — pero suscribe la corrección de un estudio reciente, que esa afinidad selectiva por el ocultismo quedaba empequeñecida por la enormidad de la hostilidad del régimen al movimiento ocultista en general

«In July 1937 an official decree outlawed Freemasonry, occult societies, and religious sects like the Christian Scientists throughout the country.» — data en julio de 1937 el decreto que proscribió en todo el país la masonería, las sociedades ocultistas y sectas religiosas como los cientistas cristianos

«Himmler’s interest in the idea that the witch trials were a Church-inspired crime against the German people led to the formation of the H-Sonderkommando unit, a team of around eight researchers employed to find and catalogue early modern witch prosecutions in German-language archives.» — el aparato que salió del interés de Himmler por hacer de los procesos de brujería un crimen eclesiástico contra el pueblo alemán, una unidad de unos ocho investigadores

«If folklorists wanted to be sponsored they had to work for the good of the National Socialist message, legitimating Nazi racial theories and promoting the purity and nobility of ‘true’ Nordic-German traditions» — y la condición que el régimen imponía al folclorista para financiarlo, trabajar por el mensaje nacionalsocialista y legitimar sus teorías raciales

«In 1949 he gave a lecture on magic books and spells to the German Academy of Sciences, and by the time of his death in 1954 the Corpus collection housed an impressive 22,000 items.» — el destino posterior de esa erudición, con una conferencia sobre libros de magia y conjuros ante la Academia de Ciencias en 1949 y una colección de 22 000 piezas para 1954

«The enthusiasm for occultism in the early twentieth century was viewed as a contributor to the Sonderweg, or special path that the course of Germany history took in its development into a racist totalitarian state.» — recoge la tesis de posguerra que hacía del entusiasmo ocultista de comienzos de siglo un ingrediente del Sonderweg alemán

«For anti-superstition crusaders the two main pillars upholding the edifice of superstition were the influence of Hexenbanners (witch doctors) and the dissemination of occult literature prior to and after the Third Reich.» — y los dos pilares que los cruzados contra la superstición identificaban, los hexenbanner y la difusión de literatura oculta

«Although Allied authorities in western Germany banned the writings of prominent Nazis, censorship was not heavy-handed and only in the French sector were publishers required to submit manuscripts for inspection.» — matiza la censura aliada en la Alemania occidental, que prohibió los escritos de nazis prominentes sin ser dura, y solo en el sector francés exigía someter los manuscritos

«However, due in part to excessive bureaucracy the law largely failed in its aims, with the exception perhaps of pornography.» — su balance de la ley contra la literatura basura, fracasada en sus fines por exceso de burocracia salvo quizá en la pornografía

«In 1953 a new statute was passed against publications that endangered the morals of the German youth.» — data en 1953 el nuevo estatuto contra las publicaciones que ponían en peligro la moral de la juventud alemana

«Despite acute awareness of the book-burning predilections of the Nazi authorities, several pyres of offensive publications were publicly burned or buried.» — y la contradicción que anota sin suavizar, que pese a la conciencia aguda de las quemas nazis se quemaran y enterraran públicamente varias piras de publicaciones ofensivas

«It was not the peddling of rip-roaring Arian fantasies that landed the publisher in court, however, but rather accusations of fostering pernicious magical beliefs.» — el detalle judicial que le interesa del editor alemán: no lo llevaron a los tribunales sus fantasías arias sino la acusación de fomentar creencias mágicas perniciosas

«He found the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses was mentioned in 20 per cent of the cases.» — la cifra que arrojó ese recuento de casos, con los Sexto y Séptimo Libros de Moisés mencionados en el veinte por ciento

«He was infuriated by the complacency of folklorists, educationalists, and the clergy for treating witchcraft beliefs as mere folklore and not a serious social menace.» — el reproche de Kruse a folcloristas, pedagogos y clero, por tratar las creencias en brujería como mero folclore y no como amenaza social seria

«Although this fitted quite well with Nazi ideas about the pernicious influence of ecclesiastical ‘superstition’, Kruse was no ardent participant in the Third Reich, and although not actively opposed to the regime he was nevertheless sufficiently lacking in enthusiasm for it to cause him some personal trouble.» — y la precisión biográfica con que Davies lo separa del régimen, porque su anticlericalismo encajaba con ideas nazis y él no fue participante entusiasta del Tercer Reich

«In 1950 he founded his own Archive for the Investigation of Contemporary Witchcraft Superstition.» — data en 1950 la fundación de su propio archivo para la investigación de la superstición brujeril contemporánea

«In defending his trade, which concerned the selling of celestial letters, Lu¨hr told the judge that the Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses was ‘openly allowed in the book-trade, and daily extolled in many newspapers and illustrated magazines’.» — la defensa que un hexenbanner opuso al tribunal en 1951, que el libro estaba abiertamente permitido en el comercio y se ensalzaba a diario

«The following year he denounced the Planet-Verlag edition, alleging that the title page’s claim to be a ‘Philadelphia’ imprint was fraudulent, and, more importantly, that its magical contents was a public menace that could potentially encourage murder.» — y la doble acusación de Kruse contra la edición de Planet-Verlag, que el pie de imprenta de Filadelfia era fraudulento y que su contenido mágico era peligroso

«In 1956 he took the bold step of suing the publisher.» — data en 1956 el paso audaz de demandar al editor

«Planet-Verlag produced its own star academic to counter the Prokop effect— the well-known professor of folklore at Go¨ttingen University, Will-Erich Peuckert (1895–1969).» — y consigna que la editorial respondió con su propio académico, el conocido profesor de folclore de Gotinga

«His support for Planet-Verlag was based, in part, on the historical perspective that the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses provided a fascinating insight into the origin and reformulation of magical traditions over the centuries.» — el argumento histórico con que Peuckert defendió a la editorial, que el libro daba una mirada valiosa sobre el origen y la reformulación de la magia

«From a folklorist’s point of view, furthermore, it had been an important influence on rural German folk magic for over a century—part of a valuable tradition that should be understood and preserved, not condemned and suppressed.» — y el folclórico, que llevaba más de un siglo influyendo en la magia popular rural alemana y era parte de una tradición que convenía entender y preservar

«The prosecution accused him of romanticizing ignorance and credulity.» — frente a lo cual la acusación le imputó romantizar la ignorancia y la credulidad

«He occasionally tried some of these out on himself, most notably a witches’ ointment described in della Porta’s Magia Naturalis.» — el método con que Peuckert probaba sus tesis, ensayando en sí mismo un ungüento de brujas descrito en la Magia Naturalis de Della Porta

«Peuckert’s testimony failed to convince the lower court, which agreed with Prokop’s contention that the Moses book was harmful and ‘a danger to the general public’.» — el fallo de primera instancia, que desoyó a Peuckert y dio la razón a Prokop en que el libro era dañino y un peligro para el público

«The owners of Planet-Verlag were fined 9,000 deutschmarks and required to withdraw the remaining stock and the printing plates.» — con multa de 9 000 marcos a los dueños de Planet-Verlag y orden de retirar las existencias y las planchas de imprenta

«The appeals court rescinded the decision, though legal proceedings rumbled on for another three years with the higher court launching an investigation as to whether the publisher’s advertisements regarding the origin and contents of the Moses Books had deceived those lured into buying it.» — revocado luego en apelación, aunque el litigio siguió tres años más con el tribunal superior investigando la publicidad del editor

«Finally, in July 1960, the court ruled that the publishers should pay a fine totalling several hundred deutschmarks rather than thousands, but otherwise all other charges arising from the original prosecution were to be dropped.» — y el desenlace de julio de 1960, con una multa de unos cientos de marcos en lugar de miles y el resto de los cargos caídos

«Over three decades he claimed to have compiled a file containing thousands of cases of occult disturbance, many of them the result of experiences with magical healing and grimoires.» — el archivo que Kurt Koch decía haber reunido en tres décadas, con miles de casos de perturbación oculta, muchos venidos de la curación mágica y los grimorios

«Koch accused Kruse of ‘failing to recognize its true background’.» — y su reproche a Kruse, que no reconocía el verdadero trasfondo del asunto

«Whether white or black, it had ‘the devil’s very own stamp on it’.» — porque para Koch la magia popular, blanca o negra, llevaba encima el sello propio del diablo

«In 1961 Koch warned that such books ‘circulate among people like poisonous gases, poisoning their very minds and souls’.» — la imagen con que en 1961 describía la circulación de esos libros, gases venenosos que envenenan la mente y el alma

«Carnacki cites brief excerpts from the Sigisand manuscript here and there in the stories, and its advice constantly frames his understanding of the spirit world and how to deal with it, but otherwise its contents remain largely a mystery.» — la técnica narrativa que describe en Hodgson, que cita fragmentos breves del manuscrito Sigsand sin desplegarlo nunca

«Hodgson was certainly an enthusiastic photographer, which may have led to an interest in spiritual investigation, but otherwise there is nothing in his brief and tragic biography to indicate any deep interest in the occult.» — y su búsqueda negativa sobre el autor, cuya biografía breve y trágica no indica compromiso ocultista alguno más allá de la fotografía

«But there is no reason to suggest that his interest in grimoires was anything but casual.» — ni razón para suponer que su interés por los grimorios fuera otra cosa que casual

«Yet, Lovecraft had no interest in merely regurgitating existing folklore and mythologies in his own fiction; rather he advocated using the corpus to create ‘new artificial myths’.» — lo que sí adjudica a Lovecraft como programa, no reciclar folclore y mitologías existentes sino usar ese corpus para crear mitos artificiales nuevos

«In a letter written in 1936 Lovecraft listed some of the ‘terrible and mysterious books so darkly mentioned in weird magazine stories’.» — la carta de 1936 en la que Lovecraft enumeró algunos de esos libros terribles y misteriosos mencionados en las revistas de terror

«Howard, who is best known for his creation Conan the Barbarian, described the first edition of Unaussprechlichen Kulten as appearing in Du¨sseldorf in 1839—a nice touch echoing, whether knowingly or not, the publication of the Horst and Scheible libraries of the occult.» — y el pie de imprenta inventado por Howard para su libro imaginario, Düsseldorf 1839, que remeda a sabiendas o no una práctica editorial real

«Robert Bloch, who would later pen the bestseller Psycho, invented the De Vermis Mysteriis, a magic book owned by an alchemist and necromancer named Ludvig Prinn burned at the stake in Brussels during the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century.» — la invención paralela de Robert Bloch, con un alquimista y nigromante quemado en Bruselas como autor supuesto

«Lovecraft’s first reference to the Necronomicon—the name was probably inspired by Marcus Manilius’s astrological poem Astronomica—was in a story called ‘The Hound’, written in 1922 and published in Weird Tales in 1924.» — data en 1922 la primera mención del Necronomicón en un relato de Lovecraft, y adjudica el nombre a una probable inspiración en el poema astrológico de Manilio

«According to this history, a mad Yemeny poet named Abdul Alhazred penned the Al Azif, or Necronomicon as it came to be known, during the early eighth century ad.» — la historia interna que Lovecraft fijó para el libro, un poeta yemení enloquecido que lo habría escrito a comienzos del siglo VIII

«Though quickly banned by Pope Gregory IX, one edition of it was printed in Germany during the fifteenth century and another, probably in Spain, two centuries later.» — con la bibliografía apócrifa completa, prohibición papal y ediciones alemana del XV y española del XVII, calcada de cómo se presentaban los grimorios verdaderos

«His main source of information was the entry on ‘magic’ in the Encyclopedia Britannica.» — y la fuente real de ese saber, la entrada sobre magia de la Encyclopaedia Britannica

«Indeed in 1925 he admitted to an acquaintance that he was ‘appallingly ignorant’ on such matters.» — que concuerda con lo que él mismo admitió en 1925, ser espantosamente ignorante en la materia

«Voynich believed his mysterious book to be of the thirteenth century and suspected that its author might have been none other than Albertus Magnus or Roger Bacon.» — la datación y la autoría que Voynich adjudicaba a su manuscrito, siglo XIII y quizá Alberto Magno o Roger Bacon

«He also reckoned he had found evidence that the manuscript had been in the ownership of John Dee, who subsequently sold it to Rudolf II.» — más una procedencia que decía haber documentado, la posesión de John Dee y la venta a Rodolfo II

«In 1921 the scholar William Newbold announced that he had been able to decipher parts of the manuscript, and confirmed that its author was indeed Roger Bacon.» — y el refrendo académico de 1921, cuando Newbold anunció haber descifrado partes y confirmado que el autor era Bacon

«Doubts about Newbold’s claim were widespread, and in 1929 the pioneering historian Lynn Thorndike, who would go on to complete a monumental eight-volume history of magic and early science, dismissed Voynich’s ‘pet’ manuscript as ‘an anonymous manuscript of dubious value’.» — frente a lo cual sitúa las dudas generalizadas y el rechazo que en 1929 le opuso Lynn Thorndike

«Others, including myself, suspect, however, that it was a modern hoax perpetrated by or on Voynich.» — declara en primera persona su propia sospecha, compartida con otros, de que se trata de un fraude moderno cometido por Voynich o contra él

«Ultimately though, he opined, ‘I am opposed to serious hoaxes, since they really confuse and retard the sincere student of folklore.» — recoge la posición de Lovecraft frente a los engaños en serio, que confunden y retrasan al estudioso sincero del folclore

«The Simon Necronomicon is a well-constructed hoax.» — y adjudica sin rodeos la condición de fraude bien construido al Necronomicón de Simon

«Its contents have been stitched together from printed sources on Mesopotamian myth and magic, and its supposed discovery by monks is a well-worn motif in grimoire history.» — cuyo contenido está cosido de fuentes impresas sobre mito y magia mesopotámicos, y cuyo hallazgo por monjes es un motivo gastado en la historia del grimorio

«But as a piece of magical literature it, and other Necronomicons, are no less ‘worthy’ than their predecessors.» — aun así se niega a descalificarlo como literatura mágica, porque no es menos digno que sus predecesores

«Like other famous grimoires explored in this book, it is their falsity that makes them genuine.» — y remata con la tesis que atraviesa el libro entero, que en estas obras es su falsedad la que las hace genuinas

«Hodsoll’s experienced eye recognizes that this place of publication could not be true.» — el gesto de perito que la propia ficción escenifica, reconocer por el pie de imprenta que el lugar de publicación no puede ser cierto

«Summers believed grimoires were an essential link in the perpetuation and promotion of diabolism, providing the means to call up the Devil, describing them as ‘abominable’, ‘vile’, and ‘dangerous’.» — la posición de Montague Summers sobre los grimorios, eslabón esencial en la perpetuación del diabolismo y medio para llamar al diablo

«According to Gardner the rituals and wisdom of the ancient witch cult had survived—only just—thanks to their being recorded in a grimoire known as the Book of Shadows.» — la historia de origen que Gardner daba para su culto, con los rituales y la sabiduría de la brujería antigua salvados por poco gracias a un grimorio

«Although pirated versions of the Book of Shadows began to appear in print from the 1960s onwards, Gardner had produced a manuscript version in the late 1940s entitled ‘Ye Bok of ye Art Magical’.» — frente a ella, la cronología material que Davies establece, con una versión manuscrita de fines de la década de 1940 anterior a las piratas de los sesenta

«But the contents seemed suspiciously familiar to those who analysed it carefully.» — y lo que el análisis de ese contenido dejó ver, una familiaridad sospechosa

«But the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that ‘Ye Bok’ and the Book of Shadows were purely Gardner’s work, drawn primarily from the Key of Solomon, Aleister Crowley’s books, which were in turn reliant on Golden Dawn texts, and Charles Leland’s Aradia.» — su conclusión sobre la autoría, que la evidencia indica de manera abrumadora obra puramente de Gardner, sacada sobre todo de la Clave de Salomón y de los libros de Crowley

«Gardner was a show-off and not averse to embroidering the truth.» — el rasgo de carácter con que lo explica, fanfarrón y nada reacio a adornar la verdad

«It is hardly a shocking revelation that he invented the existence of the New Forest coven and therefore fabricated the history of the Book of Shadows, though it has taken considerable meticulous Lovecraft, Satan, and Shadows | 271» — de modo que la invención del aquelarre del New Forest y la fabricación de la historia del Libro de las Sombras no le parecen revelación escandalosa, aunque probarlas costara mucho trabajo minucioso

«Yet in creating the Book of Shadows Gardner was merely following the long tradition of grimoire formulation, making false attributions, providing false histories, and compiling spells and rituals from unacknowledged sources.» — porque al fabricarlo Gardner seguía la tradición larguísima de formación de grimorios, con atribuciones falsas, historias falsas y recopilación de conjuros ajenos

«Furthermore, he produced the first ‘pagan’ grimoire in more than a millennium—even if its contents were based on Judaic and Christian magic.» — y le concede una primicia, el primer grimorio pagano en más de un milenio, aunque su contenido descanse en magia judía y cristiana

«His reading seems to have consisted mostly of populist works on witchcraft by the likes of W. B. Seabrook and Montague Summers, along with A. E. Waite’s books on magic.» — las lecturas con que LaVey se formó, obras populares sobre brujería de Seabrook y Montague Summers junto con los libros de magia de Waite

«Like many self-proclaimed masters of the occult before him, LaVey claimed gypsy ancestry—this time from a Transylvanian-born grandmother.» — y la ascendencia gitana que se adjudicó, esta vez por una abuela nacida en Transilvania, como tantos autoproclamados maestros del ocultismo antes que él

«Mayer, having seen some of the press reports about the Church of Satan contacted the LaVeys and suggested they write a ‘Satanic Bible’ to capitalize on the success of Levin’s novel and the film adaptation that came out a year later.» — el origen editorial de la Biblia satánica, propuesto por un editor que vio la prensa sobre la Iglesia de Satán y sugirió capitalizar el éxito de la novela de Levin y su película

«The only thing new about its philosophy was, LaVey stated frankly, ‘the formal organisation of a religion based on the universal traits of man’.» — y lo que el propio LaVey declaraba nuevo en ella, solo la organización formal de una religión basada en rasgos universales del hombre

«People have also been lured into buying it, expecting it to be something that it is not—an espousal of ritual satanic worship.» — el malentendido comercial que documenta en la Biblia satánica, comprada por gente que esperaba una defensa del culto ritual a Satanás

«Media reporting enhanced its reputation as a modern day Devil’s book.» — y el papel de la prensa en fijarle esa fama de libro del Diablo contemporáneo

«Just as in early-twentieth-century Pennsylvania the press and local authorities saw the influence of the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses behind every strange murder, so in the 1970s and 1980s media scares linked teenage suicides with the ownership of the Satanic Bible and listening to heavy metal music.» — que Davies pone en serie con lo ya visto, la Pensilvania de comienzos del XX viendo los Libros de Moisés detrás de cada crimen extraño

«It has been suggested that the Satanic Bible, with its list of infernal names and its invocations in a mystical language, indicate that the contents of the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses influenced LaVey.» — recoge la hipótesis de que los Sexto y Séptimo Libros de Moisés influyeran en la Biblia satánica por sus nombres infernales e invocaciones

«There is a complete lack of occult signs, seals, and tables in the Satanic Bible; yet these were essential ingredients of the Moses Book.» — y la desarma con el contenido: en la Biblia satánica faltan por completo los signos, sellos y tablas que eran ingrediente esencial del libro de Moisés

«The key significance of the Sigil of Baphomet, from a publishing point of view, is that in the popular imagination it conjures up expectations of Devil worship, black magic, and sacrifice: it creates ‘a sense of mystery that can only be dispelled by purchasing and reading the book.’» — lo que sí adjudica al Sigilo de Bafomet es una función editorial, crear en el imaginario la expectativa de culto diabólico, magia negra y sacrificio

«LaVey was openly dismissive of the whole genre.» — la posición del propio LaVey ante el género que se le atribuía, abiertamente despectiva

«This book was written because, with very few exceptions, every tract and paper, every ‘secret’ grimoire, all the ‘great works’ on the subject of magic, are nothing more than sanctimonious fraud—guilt-ridden ramblings and esoteric gibberish by chroniclers of magical lore unable or unwilling to present an objective view of the subject.» — y su declaración de motivos, que escribía porque casi todo tratado y grimorio secreto no pasaba de fraude santurrón

«The old bond between magic, writing, and the page has been maintained, and shows no sign of being dissolved.» — el hilo largo con que Davies cierra, el viejo vínculo entre magia, escritura y página, que no da señales de disolverse

«It has taken over 2,000 years, but women are finally a major force in both the production and the use of grimoires.» — y la novedad que fecha en dos milenios de historia, que las mujeres sean por fin fuerza principal en la producción y el uso de grimorios

«This reinforced the conviction that witch hunting was synonymous with woman hunting.» — la convicción que ese giro reforzó, la de identificar la caza de brujas con una caza de mujeres

«Witchcraft was no longer defined by such old stereotypes as the illiterate, wrinkled woman who vented her frustrations on a harsh world through simple acts of spiteful magic.» — y el estereotipo que quedó atrás, el de la mujer analfabeta y arrugada que descarga en magia rencorosa su frustración

«That said, in recent years much of the contemporary grimoire market has been aimed at a Western female teenage audience fascinated by the portrayal of contemporary practical magic and witchcraft in television dramas, rather than histories of witchcraft or the awareness of venerable magical traditions.» — el público al que se dirige buena parte del mercado actual del grimorio, adolescentes occidentales, sobre todo mujeres

«The Harry Potter books and films have been blamed by some evangelicals for being responsible for the explosion of teenage interest in practical magic.» — recoge la acusación de algunos evangélicos, que hacen a Harry Potter responsable de la explosión de interés adolescente en la magia práctica

«Harry Potter may be set in contemporary Britain, but it is a good old-fashioned saga about ‘chosen ones’ and their role in the universal struggle between good and evil.» — y la desinfla leyendo la serie por lo que es, una saga a la antigua sobre elegidos y la lucha universal entre el bien y el mal

«The Craft (1996) was an influential template for the female teen witch.» — adjudica en cambio a una película de 1996 el molde influyente de la bruja adolescente

«Books still remain fundamental to the teen witch experience though; spells cut-and-pasted from the Web clearly do not have the same appeal.» — el hallazgo que le importa como historiador del libro, que el libro sigue siendo fundamental en esa experiencia y que los conjuros copiados de la red no tienen el mismo atractivo

«The American author Silver RavenWolf is the queen of teen grimoire writers, and the advertising blurb for her Solitary Witch encapsulates well the appeal of her successful formula, explaining that the book ‘relates specifically to today’s young adults and their concerns, yet is grounded in the magickal work of centuries past’.» — nombra a Silver RavenWolf como la autora reina de ese mercado

«While undoubtedly inspired by these American dramas the teen witch phenomenon has developed a life of its own, fostered by the social networking possibilities of the Internet, which allow teenagers to form communities outside the school environment.» — y sostiene que el fenómeno tomó vida propia gracias a las redes sociales, más allá de las series estadounidenses que lo inspiraron

«So grimoires are still with us, not mere historical artefacts but cultural symbols, but what of the magic they contain?» — la pregunta con que abre su conclusión, con los grimorios todavía entre nosotros como símbolos culturales y no como piezas de museo

«This cannot be explained as a result of education and the consequent spread of rational knowledge.» — y su rechazo de la explicación fácil, porque esa persistencia no se explica por la educación ni por la difusión del conocimiento racional

«No, reason has not ended our relationship with magic.» — la razón no acabó con nuestra relación con la magia

«Wherever people do not have access to modern medicine today it is understandable that they still depend on magic, on religious faith alone.» — y lo que sí explica buena parte del recurso a ella, la falta de acceso a la medicina moderna

«There is no sign of these books being closed for good.» — cierra sin dar el asunto por terminado, sin señal de que estos libros vayan a cerrarse para siempre

«Mention should also be given to Christopher McIntosh’s The Devil’s Bookshelf (Wellingborough, 1985), which provides a brief, breezy but well-informed introduction to the history of grimoires.» — en su bibliografía razonada, la única introducción a la historia de los grimorios que recomienda como breve, ligera y bien informada

«Below I provide further suggested reading by period and region.» — declara el criterio de esa sección, lecturas sugeridas por periodo y región

«They are just some of the works I have found helpful in understanding the development and significance of grimoires.» — y su alcance, obras que a él le sirvieron para entender el desarrollo y el significado de los grimorios, no un canon

«The period of the witch trials, which is an important episode in the story of grimoires, has attracted a huge number of studies.» — sitúa los procesos de brujería como episodio importante de la historia del grimorio y reconoce la enormidad de la bibliografía que han generado

«The reader will find accessible overviews of the history of the witch trials and how historians have interpreted them in the likes of Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (3rd edn, Harlow, 2006), and Jonathan Barry and Owen Davies (eds), Witchcraft Historiography (Basingstoke, 2007).» — y remite a panorámicas accesibles sobre esos procesos y sobre cómo los han interpretado los historiadores

«I particularly recommend Michael D. Bailey, Magic and Superstition in Europe: A Concise History from Antiquity to the Present (Lanham, 2007), which is an ideal companion to this book.» — recomienda en particular una historia concisa de la magia y la superstición europeas como compañera ideal de su propio libro

«The term was coined in Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 269.» — y adjudica a Keith Thomas la acuñación del término que ha venido usando

«Writing was primarily a tool of magic for the Batak, preserving their magical tradition more faithfully than oral transmission.» — la escritura como herramienta primera de la magia entre los batak, que preserva la tradición mejor que la vía oral

«Magic squares consisting of a grid of numbers of astrological, metaphysical, or mystical signiWcance are thought to have spread westwards from China in the late Wrst millennium thanks to Persian and Arab traders.» — el cuadrado mágico y su difusión hacia el oeste desde China a fines del primer milenio, por vía persa y árabe

«The magic square also became an integral element of Indian magic, perhaps around the same time as papermaking was introduced there from China in the eighth century.» — y su integración en la magia india, quizá a la vez que el papel llegaba de China en el siglo octavo

Grimorio (libro de magia) — Libro de conjuraciones, encantamientos y recetas de amuletos y talismanes.

Magia Natural — Creencia de que fuerzas ocultas de plantas, piedras y astros pueden ser aprovechadas por el hombre.

Necromancia (nigromancia) — Originalmente adivinación por invocación de los muertos; en la Edad Media, conjuro de demonios.

Cunning Folk — Curanderos y adivinos populares que auxilian mediante artes mágicas.

Cabala Cristiana — Sistema místico judío adoptado por magos cristianos renacentistas, difundido por Pico y Reuchlin.

Rosacrucismo — Supuesta fraternidad oculta del s. XVII que combina hermetismo y cábala para una reforma espiritual.